Travel: NSF Student Travel Grant for 2023 PROTRAC:Probabilistic Trajectories in Algorithms and Combinatorics

The fields of Algorithms (efficient problem-solving methods) and Combinatorics (counting and enumeration) have thrived for the past 50 years. In the initial decades, they were largely separate fields with fundamental and seminal theorems. In recent decades, their evolution is tied much more closely, with developments and tools in one field often leading to progress in the other. An important component of both is the use of randomness, both in algorithms and in analysis. The workshop will showcase these phenomena with a series of talks by prominent researchers. It will enable younger researchers, both students and postdocs, to interact with senior researchers, and both communities will benefit from the interdisciplinary set of presentations. The topics of the workshop will include randomized algorithms, random graphs and average-case analysis, extremal combinatorics, models of large networks, rapidly mixing Markov chains, and rigorous analysis of phenomena from Statistical Physics. Students, postdocs and faculty working in related areas will be invited. Travel funding will be provided to eligible participants who need it. There will be ample opportunities for them to interact in person with speakers and other faculty from around the world. The workshop is co-located with the annual conference RANDOM-APPROX 2023. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.