The 2015 Schramm Lecture at the 38th Conference on Stochastic Processes and their Applications meeting in Oxford, UK, in July, was presented by Michel Ledoux, University of Toulouse. Michel’s lecture was on “Stein’s method, logarithmic Sobolev and transport inequalities.”

This year’s Stochastic Processes and their Applications conference welcomed over 400 speakers and delegates from 39 countries, who represented 198 institutions and organizations.

Martin Barlow, who was chair of the Scientific Committee, commented, “Over the last four decades both the mathematical depth and the scope of the SPA has broadened greatly. Early meetings were concentrated on traditional applied probability, with much attention given to (mainly one-dimensional) branching processes and queues. The talks this year show how far the field has developed; we are able to study complicated stochastic systems, in high dimensions, and with many kinds of interactions. The development of many new areas of application of probability and stochastic processes is well reflected. One example is the number of talks on mathematical finance. The common theme of several of the sessions is the development of mathematical tools to model and understand the high dimensional data sets which the computer revolution has created.”

More photos are on the conference website: http://spa2015.oxford-man.ox.ac.uk/

Michel Ledoux, 2015 Schramm lecturer, pictured with session chair Andrew Barbour (right).
Thanks to Wendy Ball, Oxford Man Institute, for the photo