In recent years, there has been a tremendous expansion in the use of probability models in finance, geosciences, neuroscience, artificial intelligence and communication networks in addition to an increase in its use in traditional application areas in engineering disciplines, physics, ecology, genetics, and various fields of mathematics. This has created a strong demand for researchers trained in probability to develop new methodologies and to work in an interdisciplinary context. We propose a variety of activities to meet these needs. Graduate fellowships will enhance the training of new researchers at Cornell, where a cohort of more than 20 Ph.D. students exists and 4-6 students receive their Ph.D.'s in this subject each year. On a national scale, two yearly 2.5 day hot topics conferences will bring to Cornell a small group of established researchers and young investigators (in equal numbers). The conference will feature talks describing recent developments, and the young researchers will have a unique opportunity to discuss their research and open problems with the leaders in the field. A two week summer school featuring 4-6 lectures by three prominent researchers, two series of 1-3 on interdisciplinary opportunities, and a limited number of short talks by selected participants, will benefit a large number of graduate students and researchers (young and old) throughout the country.
This project will be under the direction of six probabilists from Math and Operations Research at Cornell (Durrett, Lawler, Protter, Resnick, Saloff-Coste, and Samorodnitsky). Their combined research covers a wide variety of topics in probability and its applications. However, to ensure that this is truly a national resource and covers all aspects of modern probability, they will receive advice from a nationwide committee of prominent researchers that represent a wide variety of specialties and many of the major probability groups throughout the country: David Aldous (U.C. Berkeley), Thomas Kurtz (U. of Wisconsin, Madison), Claudia Neuhauser (U. of Minnesota), Charles Newman (Courant Institute), Yuval Peres (U. C. Berkeley), Simon Tavare' (U. of Southern California).
