This award will support the foundation of a postdoctoral training center in probability at the University of Washington. This center will support four postdoctoral researchers, each for a period of two years, in the field of probability. It will closely coordinate activities with the Microsoft Research theory unit, the University of British Columbia, and the soon to be established PIMS Postdoctoral Training Centre in Stochastics (PPTCS) in western Canada. These groups will co-host activities, including an annual retreat for postdocs, a probability summer school, and conferences. The centers will also regularly bring in leading experts from around the world to give colloquia and to teach short courses on the most recent developments in probability. The combination of the University of Washington center and the PPTCS will form a world-class hub for probability training, bringing together academic and industrial researchers in an international setting, and will have significant impacts on the mathematical sciences. With the combined programs, the postdocs will have the opportunity to interact with more of their young colleagues as well as more established mentors than they could in almost any other setting. In addition to the scientific interactions, the postdocs will receive career mentoring from their sponsors. This mentorship will come at a significant time in their career and train them to work either in industry or the academy.
Probability is a rapidly growing subject which is assuming increasing importance in the mathematical sciences. Together, the probabilists at the University of Washington, Microsoft Research and University of British Columbia form a group that excels in both quality and diversity of research. These scientists have helped to lead the growth in the field of probability and show the connections between probability and other areas of mathematics and theoretical computer science. They will mentor the postdocs on research in many areas of probability; both continuous and discrete as well as pure and applied. The topics to be investigated by the postdoctoral scholars include random walk in a random environment, first passage percolation and the spectral measures for random graphs. The postdocs will also study the relationships between analysis and probability, specifically the relationships with Brownian motion and Stochastic Loewner evolution. The center will also study applications of probability to topics such as finance and to solar energy. This proposal is jointly supported by the Division of Mathematical Sciences and the Office of International and Integrative Activities.
