[GSoC 2026] Integrating factors for second-order ODEs

[Gabriela Stancu]

Hello SymPy community, 

My name is Gabriela Stancu and I am a current ECE/CS graduate from Greece. The project I am interested in is related to extending SymPy's ODE solver with methods based on integrating factors for certain second-order differential equations (the project is under Mathematics Projects -> ODE ideas).

I am writing to ask whether someone from the community might be interested in mentoring this project and what project length would fit best (I can dedicate 350h).

Thank you very much for your time.

Best regards, 

Gabriela Stancu

[Gabriela Stancu]

Hello again, 

I hope you are all doing well. 

I wanted to share that I have completed a proposal for the integrating factors for second-oder ODEs project idea, which includes the technical approach and design. I believe I have the background to support this project since I have previous experience in computational engineering and mathematics and I have worked extensively with (partial) differential equations in the context of my mid-studies dissertation research assignment and my work as an undergraduate researcher in computational mathematics.

At the moment, I am also preparing a second proposal for the logic module. For this second idea, I was considering a QBF-related project as a possible way to extend the SAT-related support that SymPy already has. I have worked on QBF and knowledge representation in the context of my diploma thesis, and I would really love to see something similar incorporated into SymPy. I have also written a complete QBF solver for my thesis in C++ (with inference rules + learning techniques), so this is a topic I already have some research and implementation experience with.

I would be very grateful for feedback in whether this seems a good fit and idea for the library and whether someone from the community would be willing to mentor it.

For anyone who would like to have a look at the ODE proposal here is the draft: https://www.overleaf.com/read/cdnrssntmzkt#fb3e4d

Thank you very much.

Best, 

Gabriela Stancu

[Aaron Meurer]

Hi.

My suggestion would be to also not forget about the pull request
requirement of the proposal. We look at the pull request(s) to SymPy
just as much as the proposals when reviewing applications.

Aaron Meurer

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[Gabriela Stancu]

Hi Aaron, 

Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll make sure to include my PRs as well. 

What do you think about the QBF idea? Do you think I should continue writing a proposal for it? 

Gabriela.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sympy/CAKgW%3D6JCGfwTd4oFQhZrqUYP2oemUockP6GXSOe%2BoEbi9TUAnA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Aaron Meurer]

Tilo might have more thoughts on QBF. We do need a lot of that sort of
thing for our assumptions system. The goal now is to extend our SAT
solver to work more like an SMT solver that can call out to specific
theory solvers. I'm not familiar enough with QBF to know if that is
something that would be useful for SymPy.

Aaron Meurer

On Tue, Mar 24, 2026 at 10:50 AM Gabriela Stancu

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[Gabriela Stancu]

Hi again, 

I just wanted to let you know that I have submitted my two proposals, and I am attaching them here for your reference. 

Thanks again for your time and feedback.

Gabriela.