Past Research Program Speakers of the Midwest Probability Colloquium
Note: The first person of each year is the principal speaker
2025: David Gamarnik Turning in the Shadows of Nobel and Abel: An Algorithmic Story Behind Two Recent Prizes, I & II
Todd Kemp Matrix Random Walks and the Lima Ben Law
Ron Peled The Critical Fugacity of the Hard-core Model in High Dimensions
Dana Randall Local-global Principles for Programming Collectives
2024: Alan Sly I. Macroscopic Cycle for the Interchange Process in Dimension 5
II. Rotationally Invariant Firsst Passage Percolation - Scaling and Chaos
Erhan Bayraktar Prediction Problems and Second zorder Parabolic Equations in the Wasserstein Space
Dmitry Chelkak. Discrete Complex Structures in Fermionic Planar Lattice Models
Tai Melcher Modified Gamma Calculus for Degenerate Diffusions
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 Sen 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 Kenyon 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 & II
Elizabeth Meckes Projections of Probability Disstributions: A Measure Theoretical Dvoretzky Theorem 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 I. Branching Brownian Motion and Potential Theory in Euclidean Domains
II. 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 I. Random Walks in Random Environments: Ergodic
II. 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 system
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 I. Stochastic Flows: A Partial Survey
II. 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: February 15, 2026 by Elton P. Hsu.