Jeremy Quastel

Jeremy Quastel is a University Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Toronto, within the Faculty of Arts and Science. He has been a prominent figure in the department since returning to Canada in 1998, serving as Chair of the Department of Mathematics from 2017 to 2021. Under his leadership, the mathematics department has become a world center for research in random interface growth and the KPZ universality class.

His educational background includes:

• Undergraduate studies at McGill University
• PhD from the Courant Institute (NYU) in 1990 under S.R.S. Varadhan

Professor Quastel is a specialist in probability theory, stochastic processes, and partial differential equations. His research focuses on the large scale behavior of interacting particle systems and stochastic partial differential equations, with particular emphasis on the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class. He made groundbreaking contributions by discovering the first exact distributional solutions of the KPZ equation in 2010 and the KPZ fixed point in 2017 - the scaling invariant, integrable Markov process at the center of the KPZ universality class. His work bridges probability theory, mathematical physics, and statistical mechanics, with applications to interface growth models and directed polymers.

Analysis of his recent publications reveals a consistent focus on KPZ-related phenomena, with increasing sophistication in understanding the KPZ fixed point and its properties. His work has evolved from discovering exact solutions to establishing convergence results and exploring connections to other integrable systems like the Toda lattice. The research spans theoretical developments in stochastic PDEs, connections to random matrix theory, and applications to physical growth models.

His scientific achievements have been recognized with numerous prestigious awards:

• Sloan Fellow (1996-98)
• Invited session speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians (2010)
• Current Developments in Mathematics lectures (2011)
• St. Flour lectures (2012)
• Plenary speaker at the International Congress of Mathematical Physics (2012)
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2016)
• Fellow of the Royal Society (2021)
• CRM-Fields-PIMS prize (2018)
• Jeffery-Williams Prize of the Canadian Mathematical Society (2019)

Professor Quastel has supervised numerous PhD students who have gone on to successful careers in academia and industry, including Xuicai Ding at UC Davis, Hanna Jankowski at York University, and Konstantin Matetski at Columbia University. His research group has attracted many postdoctoral fellows who have become leading researchers in probability theory. While specific grant information isn't detailed in the provided text, his sustained research output and leadership position suggest significant grant funding supporting his work in probability theory and stochastic processes.

Though not explicitly mentioned in the provided text, Professor Quastel's work has established the University of Toronto as a global hub for research on the KPZ universality class. His collaborations span institutions worldwide, and his research group likely includes graduate students, postdocs, and visiting scholars working on various aspects of stochastic processes, interface growth models, and integrable probability. His recent work on the KPZ fixed point represents the culmination of decades of research in this field.