Serte Donderwinkel

I am an assistant professor (with a tenure track) in probability theory at the University of Groningen. I am also affiliated with the interdisciplinary centre CogniGron of mathematicians, statisticians, computer scientists and material engineers that aim to improve learning-based cognitive computing with materials-centred systems.  

I am the winner of the Royal Statistical Society's prize for UK's best applied probability PhD thesis of the last two years. 

Before moving to Groningen, I was a postdoctoral researcher at McGill University in the research group of Prof. Louigi Addario-Berry, where I was 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. 

My research is in discrete probability theory. 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. 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 my coauthors and I 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. 

CV

s.a. lastname @ rug.nl

You can find me in office 436 in the Bernoulliborg

Bachelor or master project?

I am happy to supervise bachelor or master students from Groningen or elsewhere that want to work on a question in discrete probability theory. Together, we can look for a topic that we are both interested in. Feel free to send an email or to drop by my office! 

Teaching

In term 2b I teach the new graduate course Combinatorial Mathematics B. I will cover various models for random trees and graphs and I will discuss the probabilistic tools needed to study them. In term 1b I will teach Graph Theory to the first-year students in the BSc in Mathematics.

Women+ lunch

With Anne-Men Huijzer and Cecília Salgado, we organize a monthly lunch meeting for female and non-binary identifying master students and academic staff in (applied) mathematics in Groningen. Send me an email if you are interested in attending!

Upcoming events

Research

Theses