Ivan Corwin

Ivan Corwin is an American mathematician specializing in probability theory and mathematical physics. He is a professor at Columbia University and a member of its Department of Mathematics. Corwin is renowned for his fundamental contributions to the understanding of KPZ universality, a central concept describing the random growth of interfaces, and related areas like stochastic PDEs and interacting particle systems.

Early life and education

Ivan Corwin was born in New York City and grew up in Westchester County, New York. He developed an early interest in mathematics, which led him to pursue his undergraduate studies at the University of Chicago, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree. For his doctoral work, he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, completing his Ph.D. in 2011 under the supervision of Jeremy Quastel. His thesis, which focused on the KPZ equation, laid the groundwork for his subsequent influential research. During this period, he also spent time as a visiting student at institutions like the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in France.

Career and research

Following his doctorate, Corwin held a postdoctoral position as a Clay Mathematics Institute Research Fellow, split between Microsoft Research in New England and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He then joined the faculty of Columbia University in 2013, where he has remained a leading figure. His research primarily explores universal scaling limits in probability, with deep connections to statistical mechanics and integrable systems. A major focus has been the KPZ universality class, where his work with collaborators like Jeremy Quastel, Daniel Remenik, and Tomohiro Sasamoto has provided exact formulas and asymptotic analysis for key models such as the asymmetric simple exclusion process and the totally asymmetric simple exclusion process. He has also made significant advances in the study of stochastic PDEs, including the stochastic heat equation and the nonlinear Schrödinger equation.

Awards and honors

Corwin's contributions have been recognized with several prestigious awards in mathematics. In 2013, he received the Salem Prize, awarded for outstanding work in analysis. He was a co-recipient of the Loève Prize in 2015, an international award for researchers in probability under 45. That same year, he was also awarded the Rollo Davidson Prize for young probabilists. A significant honor came in 2021 when he received the New Horizons in Mathematics Prize, part of the Breakthrough Prize suite, for his transformative work on integrable probability and the KPZ universality class. He is an elected fellow of the American Mathematical Society and has been an invited speaker at major conferences including the International Congress of Mathematicians.

Selected publications

Corwin's influential publications appear in leading journals such as Annals of Probability, Communications in Mathematical Physics, and Inventiones Mathematicae. Key works include "The Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation and universality class" in Random Matrices: Theory and Applications, which expanded from his thesis. Other notable papers are "Exact formulas for random growth in 1+1 dimensions" in Nuclear Physics B, co-authored with Jeremy Quastel, and "Continuum statistics of the Airy_2 process" in Communications in Mathematical Physics. His research on the stochastic heat equation with multiplicative noise, published in the Annals of Probability, is also widely cited.

Personal life

Ivan Corwin is married and resides in New York City. He is known within the mathematical community for his collaborative approach and mentorship of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. Outside of his professional work, he maintains interests in history and the arts. He continues to be an active researcher and lecturer, contributing to the vibrant mathematical scene at Columbia University and internationally.

Category:American probabilists Category:Columbia University faculty Category:21st-century American mathematicians