Alexander E. Holroyd

Address: Department of Mathematics, 121 - 1984 Mathematics Rd, UBC, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2, CANADA
E-mail: holroyd at math dot ubc dot ca
Homepage: www.math.ubc.ca/~holroyd
Telephone/Fax: 604 822 6532

Research interests

Probability theory, with emphasis on discrete spatial models, including cellular automata, percolation, matching and coupling.

Papers

A. E. Holroyd & Y. Peres: Extra Heads and Invariant Allocations. The Annals of Probability. Accepted.

A. E. Holroyd, T. M. Liggett & D. Romik: Integrals, Partitions, and Cellular Automata. Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, 2004, Vol 356, No 8, 3349-3368.

A. E. Holroyd & Y. Peres: Trees and Matchings from Point Processes. Electronic Communications in Probability, 2003, Vol 8, Paper 3, 17-27.

A. E. Holroyd: Sharp Metastability Threshold for Two-Dimensional Bootstrap Percolation. Probability and Related Fields, 2003, Vol. 125, No. 2, 195-224.

A. E. Holroyd & T. M. Liggett: How to Find an Extra Head: Optimal Random Shifts of Bernoulli and Poisson Random Fields. The Annals of Probability, 2001, Vol. 29, No. 4, 1405-1425.

A. E. Holroyd: Rigidity Percolation and Boundary Conditions. The Annals of Applied Probability, 2001, Vol. 11, No. 4, 1063-1078.

G. R. Grimmett & A. E. Holroyd: Entanglement in Percolation. Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society (3), 2000, Vol. 81, No. 2, 485--512.

A. E. Holroyd: Existence of a Phase Transition for Entanglement Percolation. Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 2000, Vol. 129, 231-251.

A. E. Holroyd: Existence and Uniqueness of Infinite Components in Generic Rigidity Percolation. The Annals of Applied Probability, 1998, Vol. 8, No. 3, 944-973.

A. E. Holroyd: Entanglement and Rigidity in Percolation Models. In and Out of Equilibrium (V. Sidorvicius, ed.), 2002, Birkhauser, 299-307.

A. E. Holroyd: Knotted Paths in Percolation. Journal of Statistical Physics, 2002, Vol. 109, Nos. 1/2, 325-330.

A. E. Holroyd: Inequalities in Entanglement Percolation. Journal of Statistical Physics, 2002, Vol. 109, Nos. 1/2, 317-323.

A. E. Holroyd: Percolation Beyond Connectivity. PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 1999 (unpublished).

Papers in preparation and current projects

A Stable Marriage of Poisson and Lebesgue (with C. Hoffman and Y. Peres); A Percolating Hard-Sphere Model (with D. Revelle); An Explicit Finitary Code with Exponential Tails (with N. Harvey, D. Romik and Y. Peres); Crossover and Slow Convergence in Bootstrap Percolation Models (with J. Gravner); Rotor-Router Walks (with J. Propp).

Employment

2002-present	Assistant Professor (tenure track)	Department of Mathematics, University of British Columbia, Canada (on leave 2002-2003)
2005 Jan-May	Visitor	Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, Berkeley, USA
2002-2003	Postdoctoral Fellow	UC Berkeley, Department of Mathematics, USA
1999-2002	Hedrick Assistant Professor	UCLA Department of Mathematics, USA
1991-1992	Assistant Researcher	Transport Research Laboratory, Crowthorne, Berkshire, U.K.

Qualifications

2000	Ph.D. in Mathematics	Statistical Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK
1996	Certificate of Advanced Study in Mathematics, with Distinction	Queens' College, University of Cambridge, UK
1995	B.A. Honours in Mathematics, First Class	Queens' College, University of Cambridge, UK
1989-1991	4 A-levels at grade A, 3 S-levels at grade 1, 9 GCSEs at grade A	Yateley School, Hampshire, UK

Awards

2004	Rollo Davidson Prize (awarded annually to young probabilists)
1997	Smith Prize (Class 1 of 5) for essay on PhD research
1992-1995	University and College prizes for examination results
1991	British Physics Olympiad gold award

Grants

2003-present	National Sciences and Engineering Research Council (Canada) research grant (as principal investigator)
2000-2003	National Science Foundation (USA) research grant (as principal investigator)

Teaching

2003-present	UBC	Lecturing and administrating graduate and undergraduate courses in mathematics
2003	UBC	Supervising an undergraduate in a summer research project
2002	UCLA	Department of Mathematics Distinguished Teaching Award
1999-2002	UCLA	Lecturing and administrating undergraduate courses in Probability Theory, Calculus and Discrete Mathematics
2001-2003	UCLA, UCB	Organising weekly probability seminars
2002	UCLA	Teaching graduate topics course on Percolation
1997-1999	University of Cambridge	Supervising undergraduates in Probability Theory and Markov Chains

Selected talks

Invited talks at conferences: Institute of Mathematical Statistics / Bernoulli Society Annual Meeting (Barcelona, 2004), Workshop on randomized algorithms (Isaac Newton Institute, Cambridge 2002), European meeting of statisticians (Prague, 2002), Southern California Probability Symposium (USC, 1999).
Mathematics department colloquia: UC Berkeley, UBC Vancouver, Georgia Institute of Technology, Iowa State University.
Seminars: University of Sao Paulo, University of Utrecht, University of Cambridge, UW Madison, UBC Vancouver, UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC San Diego, California Institute of Technology, Microsoft Research.

Other professional activities

Refereeing papers for journals inculding The Annals of Probability, Probability Theory and Related Fields, The Annals of Applied Probability, London Mathematical Society. Reviewing research grant proposals for National Science Foundation (USA). Joint organiser of Seminar on Stochastic Processes (UBC, 2004).

Other skills

Computer literacy including word processing, spreadsheets, Html, LaTeX, Mathematica, programming in Delphi. Full clean UK and Canada driving licences. Languages: native English and basic French.

Other interests

Bellringing; cycling; choral singing.