Past Research Program Speakers of the Midwest Probability Colloquium

Note: The first person of each year is the principal speaker

2023:   Pablo Ferrari           I.  Hidden Temperature in the KMP Model
                          II. Soliton Decomposition of the Zigzag Random Walk
    Sandra Cerrai      The Smoluchowski-Kramers Diffusion Approximation for Constrained Stochastic Wave Equation
    Sumit Mukerjee     Permutation Limits
    Arnab Senn         Some Results on Levy Spin Glasses


2022:   Robin Pemantle          I.  A Review of Negative Dependence
                          II. An Active Learning Approach to Graduate Applied Probability
    Tom Hutchcroft     Percolation on Finite Transitive Graphs
    Xin Sun            Random Modulus of the Brownian Annulus and the Ghost CFT
    Dapeng Zhan        Boundary Green's Function and Minkowski Content for SLE


2020:   Sylvia Serfaty     Microscopic Description of Coulomb-type Systemns (I & II)
    Ivan Corwin        Johansson's Conjecture is False on a Set of Times of Hausdorff Dimension 2/3
    J.-Christophe Mourrat   Mean-field Spin Glasses: Beyond Parisi's Formula?
    Will Perkins       Analyticity for Classical Gasses via Recursion


2019:   Greg Lawler             I. Complex Gaussian Fields and (Brownian Motion and Random Walk) Loop Soups
                          II. Brownian Loops, Multiple Radial Schramm-Loewner Evolution and Dyson Brownian Motion
    Louis-Pierre Arguin Large Values of the Riemann Zeta Function in Short Intervals
    Jasmine Foo        Statistical Models of Cancer Evolution
    Janko Gravner      Long-range Bootstrip Percolation


2018:   Rick Kenyons       Limit Shapes for Height Models (I & II)
    Paul Bourgade      Random Matrices and Logarithmically Correlated Fields
    Firas Rassoul-Agha Shifted Weights and Restricted-Length Path in First-Passage Percolation
    Tianyi Zheng       Random Walks on Groups of Intermediate Volume Growth


2017:   Ruth Williams      Reflected Diffusions, Stochastic Network and Biology (I & II)
    Wei-Kuo Chen       Energy Landscape of Mean Field Spin Glass
    Xin Guo            How Much Aggregation Is Too Much: Play mean Field Game Through Several Examples
    Nike Sun           Phase Transitions in Random Constraint Satisfaction Problems


2016:   Scott Sheffeild    Universal Randomness in 2D (I & II)
    Alan Hammond       Brownian Regularity for the Airy Line Ensemble
    Miranda Holmes-Cerfon   Stchastic Processes With Constraints as Models in Materials Science
    Andrea Montanari   Semidefinite Programs on Spars Random Graphs


2015:   Marek Biskup       Extreme Values of 2D Gaussian Free Fields (I & II)
    Masha Gordina      Stochastic Analysis and Geometric Functional Inequalities
    Eyal Lubetzky      Random Walks on the Random Graph
    Marcel Nutz        Martingale Optimal Transport


2014:   Davar Khoshnevisan I.  Nonlinear Noise Excitation.
                          II. Internittency & Multifractability
    Omer Angel              Planar Unimodular Graphs
        Kay Kirkpatrick    Non-normal Asymptotics of Mean-field Spin Models    
    Laurent Saloff-Coste    Random Walks on Finitely Generated Solvable Group



2013:   Martin Barlow           Random Walks and the Geometry of the Uniform Spanning Tree, I & II
        Lionel Levine           StabScalin Limit of the Abelian Sandpile
        Dimitry Panchenko   Ultrametricity in Spin Glass Models


 2012:  Jeremy Quastel      The Kadar-Parisi-Zhang Equation and Its Universality Class , I & I
        Elizabeth Meckes        Projections of Probability Disstributions: A Measure Theoretical
                            Dvoretzky Theoremting!) of Ramsey R(3,k)
        Gennady Smorodnitsky On the Existence of Paths Between Points in High Level Excursion
                            Sets of Gaussian Random Fields


2011:   Russell Lyons       Some Aspects of Determinantal Probability Measures, I & II
        Amarjit Budhiraja   Some Variational Formulas for Space-Time Brownian Motions
                            and Poisson Random Measures
        Eric Carlen         Recent Progress in Mark Kac's Probabilistic Program in Kinetic Theory
    Elena Kosygina      Crossing Velocities of Random Walks in a Random Potential


 
2010:   Kurt Johansson     Non-colliding Brownian motions and random matrix theory, I & II
        Sourav Chatterjee  The Large Deviation Principle for the Erdos-Renyi Random Graph
    Benedek Valko      Random tri-diagonal matrices, beta ensembles and random Schr�dinger operators



2009:   Joel Spencer            I.  78 Years (and Counting!) of Ramsey R(3,k)
                            II. Sieving a Needle From Lovasz's Exponential Haystack
        Maury Bramson           Stability Criteria and Applications for Load Balancing in Many-Server Queues
        Sunder Sethuraman   Non-equilibrium Behaviors of a Tagged Particle in an Interacting Systems



2008:   Jean-Francois Le Gall   The Continuous Limit of Large Random Planar Graphs, I & II
        Alexei Borodin      Growth of Random Surfaces
    Savas Dayanik       Sequential Change Detection and Identification Problems for Stochastic
                            Processes



2007:   Chris Burdzy            Branching Brownian Motion and Potential Theory in Euclidean Domains
                              Reflected Brownian Motion
    Vladas Sidoravicius     Growth systems with columnar defects and the polymer pinning problem
    Eulalia Nualart         Potential Theory and Stochastic Heat Equations



2006:   Ofer Zeitouni           Random Walks in Random Environments: Ergodic
                              Properties, Homogenization, and Counterexamples, I & II
    Alexander Holroyd  Random Sorting
    Balint Virag            Scaling Limits of Random Matrices



2005:   Robert Adler            Random Fields on Manifolds, I & II
    Alice Guionett     Combinatorial Aspects of Large Random Matrices
    Marek Biskup            Limit Theorems for Random Walks on Supercritical Percolation Clusters



2004:   Persi Diaconis          Secrets of Stein's Methods Explained,  I & II
    Francesco Russo    Stochastic Calculus and Generalized Dirichlet Processes
    Zhenqing Chen      Boundary Trace of a Markov Processes



2003:   Gerard Ben Arous       Aging in random landscapes, and dynamics of spin glasses, I & II
    Bruce Driver           Heat equations on Loop Groups and 2-dimensional quantized Yang-Mills Equations
        Jonathan Mattingly     The stochastically forced Navier-Stokes equation, ergodicity, mixing and scales



2002:   Oded Schramm           Scaling limits of two-dimensional statistical physics: percolation, uniform spanning
                               trees and beyond, I & II
    Amir Dembo             Late points and cover times
        Fraydoun Rezakhanlon   Kinetic limits for interacting particle systems



2001:   Craig Tracy         The Universality of the distribution functions of random matrix theory, I & II

     Jan Rosinksi Infinitely divisible processes: representations, ergodicity and regularity of trajectories

    Qi-Man Shao Self-normalized limit theorems in probability and statistics



2000:   Richard Bass        Harnack inequalities: proofs and applications, I & II

     Magda Peligrad      Basic tools for weak-dependent sequences and their applications 

                              to limit theorems      

     Timo Seppelainen    The Variational Coupling Method for Hydrodynamical Limits


1999:   Marc Yor            Some Aspects of Brownian Motion - New Developments, I & II

     Kenneth Alexander   Interface Roughness for Separated Phases        

     Wenbo Li            Small Deviations and/or Small Ball Probabilities


1998:   Ioannis Karatzas    Stochastic Models in Finance Theory, I & II

     H.T. Yau            Dirichlet Spaces in Statistical Mechanics

     Davar Koshvenasian  Multi-Parameter Brownian Motion


1997:   Tom Liggett         Stochastic Growth Models on Trees, I & II

     Robin Pemantle      Urn Schemes and Reinforced Random Walks, Old and New

     Richard Sowers      Some Probabilistic Aspects of Motion by Mean Curvature



1996:   David Nualart       Applications of Malliavin Calculus to the Regularity and

                              Support of Probability Laws, I & II

     Michael Cranston    On Some Geometric Aspects of Stochastic Flows

     Uwe Einmahl         General Results on the Almost Sure Behavior of Increments of Partial Sums


1995:   Charles Newman      First-Passage Percolation-Random Geometry on Z^d, I & II

     David Griffeath     Threshold Growth Dynamics

     Claudia Neuhauser   A Spatial Competition Process


1994:   David Ruelle        Applications of the Ideas of Chaos, I & II

     Peter Baxendale     A Stochastic Hopf Bifurcation

     Carl Mueller        Travelling Waves for Stochastic PDE


1993:   Francois Ledrappier Asymptotic Properties of Brownian Motion on Covers 

                              of Compact Manifolds of Negative Curvature, I & II

     Rene Carmona        Large Time Asymptotics for Stochastic Parabolic Equations

     Yuval Peres         Capacity Applied to Random Walks and Multiple Points 

                              for Brownian Motion


1992:   Harry Kesten        First and Last-passage Percolation, I & II

     Terry McConnell     Gambler's Ruin Revisited: Where Does a Random Walk Leave a Large Sphere?

     Steven Evans        Multiplicities of a Random Sausage


1991:   Rick Durrett        Particle Systems and Reaction-diffusion Equations, I & II

     Russell Lyons       Random Walks, Percolation and Random Labels on Trees

     Jennie Hansen       Limit Theorems for Random Combinatorial Structures


1990:   Michel Talagrand    A New Isoperimetric Inequality and the Supremum of 

                              Some Canonical Processes, I & II

     Burgess Davis       Conditioned and Killed Brownian Motion in Domains of R^n

     Greg Lawler         Making Money From Fair Games


1989:   James Taylor        Fractal Analysis of Random Sets, I & II

     Phil Griffin        How Porus is the Graph of Brownian Motion?

     Boris Rozovskii     Diffusion Approximation to the Induction Equation of Kinetic Dynamo Theory


1988:   Donald Burkholder   On the Comparison and Control of Martingales, I & II

     Lawrence Gray       Cantor Set-valued Markov Processes

     Steven Lalley       Renewal Theorems in Symbolic Dynamics


1987:   Persi Diaconis      Random Walk with Reinforcement, I & II

     Alex de Acosta      Large Deviations for Vector-valued Functionals of a Markov Chain with

                             General State Space

     Krystoff Burdzy     Local Properties of Brownian Excursions


1986:   Edward Nelson       Stochastic Mechanics: Diffusions Critical for a Lagrangian, I & II

     Michael Aizenmann   Critical Behavior in Percolation and Related Models

     Ruth Williams       Reflected Brownian Motion in a Polyhedron


1985:   Ludwig Arnold       Lyapunov Xxponents of Stochastic Systems, I & II

     James Kuelbs        Some Limit Theorems with Maxima l Term Deleted

     Richard Bradley     The Central Limit Question for Strictly Stationary $\rho$-mixing 

                             Random Sequences


1984:   Davis Aldous        Probability Applications via the Poisson Clumping Heuristic, I & II

     Robert Van der Bei  Strong Markov Processes--Choosing an Appropriate Analytic/topological

                             Framework
        Michael Woodroofe   Very Weak Expansions for the Distributions of a Randomly Stopped Sum



1983:   Daniel Stroock      Some Applications of Stochastic Analysis I & II

     Thomas Kurtz        Limit Theorems for Population Processes via Embeddings in Random Measures

     Sandy Zabell        Statistical Curvature in Infinite Dimensions and the Orlicz Manifold of

                             Probability Measures


1982:   Theodore Harris     Stochastic Flows: A Partial Survey 

                             Some Types of Stochastic Flows: Incompressible, Rotation-free, Coalescing

     N. Etemadi          Some Old Results in Probability Revisited

     Michael Steele      Some Probability Problems Originating in Computer Science


1981:   John B. Walsh       Excursion Processes and the Markov Property of Local Time I & II

     Erhan Cinlar        Representations of Semimartinagle Markov Processes

     David Griffeath     Stalking the Critical Contact Process


1980:   S.R.S. Varadhan     Some Problems on Large Deviations and Applications I & II

     Stewart Ethier      On the Infinitely May Alleles Diffusion Model

     Maury Bramson       Application of the Feynman-Kac Formula to the Kolmogorov Equation


1979:   Joseph L. Doob      Potential Theory and Brownian Motion I & II

     Gilles Pisier       Random Fourier Series

     William Pruitt      One-sided Laws of the Iterated Logarithm



Last Updated: October 2, 2025,  by Elton P. Hsu.