Participant Testimonials
The BIRS workshop gave me new contacts I wouldn't have had otherwise and also fresh insight on a field of study I was not so familiar with.
I found the week in Banff very helpful for my research program. Although I benefited from all the talks there were three which were of particular interest to me: (a) talks of Funaki and Nishigawa: In these talks the speakers discussed their work on hydrodynamic limits. I learned that so called Glauber dynamics leads to second order equations and Kawasaki dynamics to fourth order. These fourth order equations are of Cahn-Hilliard type. I have been studying Cahn-Hilliard equations for several years now in the context of understanding the phenomenon of coarsening, so it was very interesting for me that these equations can be derived from a microscopic model. I think this may have some relevance for my research in the future. (b) talk of Felix Otto: This talk was very close to what I have been working hard on for the past year or so. It is a kind of parallel development to what I have been doing. Otto has been studying rates of convergence in homogenization, while I have been working on the asymptotics of averaged Green's functions for solutions of PDE with random coefficients. Otto has stronger results in his situation, so I am looking forward to applying the new methods he has developed to the problems I have been working on. Apart from professional enrichment, the week in Banff was thoroughly enjoyable for me. The accommodation and food were excellent, and the splendid natural environment absolutely wonderful. I am very glad I had the opportunity to attend the workshop.
The workshop was very stimulating because the speakers of the talks belonged to three different areas of Mathematics: Analysis, Probability and Math Physics; and yet we were all studying similar problems. Of course for me it was a good occasion to present to an audience of experts my recent results and, most importantly, my methods, which are slightly different from the one used my the majority of scholars in the field. Besides, during the long pauses between the morning and the afternoon sections, and even during an afternoon hike in the mountains, discussions with some of the participants gave me new points of view about a certain class of models that I am studying currently: hopefully this will lead to some progress.
The participation at this workshop did had a very good impact to my research. I particular I started two new collaborations with participants at the workshop, and had many stimulating discussions. I did not gave a talk myself, since I do not have recent results on the specific topic of the conference.
Mathematics, CEREMADE - Université Paris Dauphine
