The workshop was a fantastic tribute to the outstanding work of Harold Widom. On a personal note I can say that discussions spurred by the talk of K. T. R. McLaughlin and of P. Bleher on the normal matrix model has already lead to interesting development in the study of universality (bulk and boundary), and I am presently very actively pursuing the topic with McLaughlin (Arizona). Already some results seem to appear. Thus I reckon it was an exceptionally fruitful experience and thank BIRS for the opportunity.

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This was a very high quality workshop and I learned a lot of new results which will be very useful for my current research. I am in this area for a long time, and I know most of the participants, but there were some new people. It is possible that I will have new collaborations originated at the workshop. The workshop can influence the hiring process which we will have this year at our department. We will see. I think that the workshop will have a significant impact on the area of random matrix models and their applications, in terms of new collaborations, publications, presentations, etc.

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The workshop was wonderful. It gave me a chance to catch up and have some very helpful discussions with colleagues, make progress on two current projects with two of the organizers, and present some recent work. It was also a terrific opportunity for my most recent PhD student to present his work and make important contacts which may lead to future collaborations.

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At the workshop the most recent results in our field were reported, an information which otherwise would be obtained much later and only partially. Concrete examples for me are: 1) discussions with Ortmann and O'Connell on Brownian motion in the Weyl chamber, 2) discussions with Sasamoto on duality for ASEP, 3) discussions with Baik, Kazumasa (Baik reported on a new identity for he Airy process, Kazumasa could extract an confirmation from his liquid crystal experiment.) 4) discussions with Corwin on the semi-discrete directed polymer with stationary initial data, 5) discussions with Borodin and Corwin on oblique reflections in the Weyl chamber, 6) discussions with Valko on superdiffusive bounds. Presumably there are more. But these discussions advanced my own research. Item 2 is not applicable. There have been many informal exchanges, which generate a common feeling for separating important from less important items.

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