Fostering Global Collaboration in Probability
The Las Vegas Institute of Probability Theory is delighted to launch its inaugural Visiting Fellows Program for the 2024-2025 academic year. This competitive program invites established and emerging scholars from around the world to spend between one and three months in residence at our institute. The goal is to stimulate intellectual exchange, seed new collaborative research projects, and infuse our community with diverse perspectives from the global probability landscape. Fellows will be integrated into the life of the institute, with access to all facilities, opportunities to present their work, and dedicated time to pursue their research agendas free from usual academic duties.
Program Structure and Benefits
The program offers two tiers of fellowships:
- Distinguished Visiting Fellows: For senior researchers of international renown. Typically one-month residencies. Includes a generous stipend, luxury accommodation, and an expectation to deliver a public lecture and lead a masterclass for our graduate students.
- Early Career Visiting Fellows: For researchers within 10 years of their Ph.D. Residencies of 2-3 months are encouraged. Includes a stipend covering living expenses, shared office space, and the expectation to collaborate closely with at least one institute faculty member, potentially leading to co-authored publications.
All Fellows receive:
- Full access to the institute's computational clusters, specialized software, and library resources.
- Administrative support for organizing workshops or small meetings during their stay.
- Opportunities to engage with our industry and government partners through arranged site visits or seminars.
- A vibrant, interdisciplinary community of scholars focused on probability.
Application Process and Focus Areas for 2024-25
Applications are now open. The selection committee will prioritize applicants whose research interests align with one or more of the institute's strategic focus areas for the coming year:
- Probability and Climate Resilience: Stochastic modeling of extreme weather events, uncertainty quantification in climate models, and probabilistic decision-making for adaptation.
- Foundations of Generative AI: Theoretical understanding of diffusion models, normalizing flows, and other deep generative models from a stochastic process perspective.
- Game-Theoretic Probability: Advances in optimal stopping, prophet inequalities, and the design of fair mechanisms in stochastic environments.
- Interacting Particle Systems and Collective Behavior: Modeling swarms, opinion dynamics, and financial markets using tools from statistical physics.
Applications require a CV, a research proposal outlining the work to be undertaken during the residency, a proposed timeline, and the names of two referees. For Early Career applicants, a letter of support from an institute faculty member expressing interest in collaboration is highly recommended but not mandatory.
"We want the institute to be a crossroads for the world's best probabilistic thinking," said Director Arthur Finch. "By bringing brilliant minds here, even for short periods, we create collisions of ideas that wouldn't happen otherwise. A Fellow might give a talk that inspires a graduate student's thesis, or a casual coffee conversation might spark a decade-long research partnership. That's the magic we're trying to cultivate." The deadline for applications for residencies starting in Fall 2024 is April 30, 2024. We look forward to welcoming our first cohort of Visiting Fellows.