Lingfu Zhang
Lingfu Zhang
Assistant Professor of Mathematics
B.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2017; Ph.D., Princeton University, 2022. Assistant Professor, Caltech 2024-.
Research Interests: Probability theory, and its connections to mathematical physics, computer science, combinatorics, and statistics
Overview
Lingfu Zhang is an Assistant Professor in Mathematics at Caltech. His research is in the area of probability, and within this area, he is interested in various problems, connected with mathematical physics, computer science, combinatorics, and statistics. Topics he has studied include the Last Passage Percolation and related exactly solvable models in the KPZ universality class, the Anderson model of localization, and problems on Markov chains, such as cutoffs and factors of IID/local sampling algorithms.
Selected Awards
- Sloan Research Fellow, 2026
- Bernoulli Society New Researcher Award, 2024
- Hartley Rogers Jr. Prize, MIT, 2016
- Gold Medal, the 54th International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), 2013
Selected Awards
- Sloan Research Fellow, 2026
- Bernoulli Society New Researcher Award, 2024
- Hartley Rogers Jr. Prize, MIT, 2016
- Gold Medal, the 54th International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), 2013
Related Courses
Ma/ACM/IDS 140 abc. Probability.
9 units (3-0-6); first, second, third terms, 2025-26.
Prerequisites: For 140 a, Ma 108 b is strongly recommended.
This course begins with an overview of measure theory, followed by topics that include random walks, the strong law of large numbers, the central limit theorem, martingales, Markov chains, characteristic functions, Poisson processes, and Brownian motion. Towards the end, some further topics may be covered, such as stochastic calculus, stochastic differential equations, Gaussian processes, random graphs, Markov chain mixing, random matrix theory, and interacting particle systems.
Instructors: Tamuz, El-Maazouz, Zhang
Instructors: Tamuz, El-Maazouz, Zhang
Ma 191 abc. Selected Topics in Mathematics.
9 units (3-0-6); first, second, third terms, 2025-26.
Each term we expect to give between 0 and 6 (most often 2-3) topics courses in advanced mathematics covering an area of current research interest. These courses will be given as sections of 191. Students may register for this course multiple times even for multiple sections in a single term. The topics and instructors for each term and course descriptions will be listed on the math option website each term prior to the start of registration for that term.
Instructors: T. Yu, Pham, Zhang, Yang, Heinaevaara, Looi, Svoboda, Marcolli, El-Maazouz, Flach, Dong
Instructors: T. Yu, Pham, Zhang, Yang, Heinaevaara, Looi, Svoboda, Marcolli, El-Maazouz, Flach, Dong