Serte Donderwinkel
I am a postdoctoral researcher at McGill University and I am part of the research group of Prof. Louigi Addario-Berry. I am funded by a CRM-ISM Postdoctoral Fellowship. I completed my PhD at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Prof. Christina Goldschmidt, where I was also a Stipendiary Lecturer at St. Hugh's College. In 2024, I will start a tenure track at the University of Groningen in the research group of Prof. Tobias Müller. I will also be affiliated with the CogniGron.
My research is in discrete probability. The common denominator of my projects is that they involve creative sampling procedures that, combined with tools from (stochastic) analysis, allow me to study the large-scale structure of the random tree or graph. No matter whether I am obtaining a large deviations principle, solving a counting problem with the probabilistic method or proving a metric space scaling limit, I always devote most attention to finding a smart way of sampling that unlocks the result that I am after. This approach has allowed me and my coauthors to answer questions in both discrete probability and probabilistic combinatorics, asked by for example Svante Janson, Alex Scott, Colin McDiarmid, Gordon Royle and Paul Erdős. Currently, I am mostly thinking about a fun model for recursive random trees, the metric space scaling limit of a couple of random tree models, the enumeration of score sequences of tournaments and a large deviations principle for random trees.
Contact: firstname.lastname at mcgill.ca
Want to work with me?
I will be recruiting a PhD student to start in 2024 or early 2025. Do you want to work on discrete probability and do you want to live in one of the best small cities in the world? Or do you know someone suitable? Don't hesitate to get in touch!
(I also like to work with people without employing them so if the above does not apply to you, you can still reach out!)
Research
Addario-Berry, L., Donderwinkel, S. and Kortchemski, I. Critical trees are neither short nor fat, 2023, preprint arXiv:2311:06163, 30pp
Balister, P., Donderwinkel, S., Groenland, C., Johnston, T., and Scott, A. Counting graphic sequences via integrated random walks, 2023, preprint arXiv:2301.07022, 43pp
Addario-Berry, L., and Donderwinkel, S., Random trees have height O(√n), 2022, preprint arXiv:2201.11773, 33pp
Addario-Berry, L., Blanc-Renaudie, A., Donderwinkel, S., Maazoun, M., and Martin, J. The Foata–Fuchs proof of Cayley’s formula, and its probabilistic uses, Electron. Commun. Probab. 28: 1-13 (2023), DOI: 10.1214/23-ECP523
Donderwinkel, S., and Xie, Z. Universality for the directed configuration model: metric space convergence of the strongly connected components at criticality, 2021, preprint arXiv:2105.11434, 86pp
Donderwinkel, S. Height process convergence of supercritical Galton-Watson forests, with an application to the configuration model in the critical window, 2021, preprint arXiv:2105.12109, accepted at Advances in Applied Probability, 43pp
Upcoming events
ICTS-NETWORKS Workshop “Challenges in Networks”, January 2024, Chennai, India, invited speaker
Young European Probabilists, March 2024, Eindhoven, Netherlands, invited speaker
Bellairs workshop on Probability and Combinatorics, March 2024, Holetown, Barbados, invited participant
Dutch Math Congres, April 2024, Lunteren, Netherlands, invited speaker
BIRS--CMI workshop on mathematical foundations of network models and their applications, December 2024, Bangalore, India, organiser
Theses
The structure of large random graphs, PhD Thesis, August 2022, supervised by Christina Goldschmidt
The ant in the labyrinth, written in April 2018 as part of Part iii of the Mathematics Tripos at the University of Cambridge, supervised by Perla Sousi, primarily based on a paper by Noam Berger, Nina Gantert and Yuval Peres
Stein's method applied to preferential attachment graphs, written in June 2016 as part of BSc in Mathematics at the University of Groningen, supervised by Daniel Rodrigues-Valesin and Aernout van Enter, primarily based on a paper by Nathan Ross