Kwan Group

Combinatorics and Probability

Combinatorics is the area of mathematics concerned with finite structures and their properties. This subject is enormously diverse and has connections to many different areas of science: for example, objects of study include networks, sets of integers, error-correcting codes, voting systems, and arrangements of points in space.

Kwan’s group studies a wide range of combinatorial questions, with a particular focus on the interplay between combinatorics and probability. On the one hand, surprisingly often it is possible to use techniques or intuition from probability theory to resolve seemingly non-probabilistic problems in combinatorics (this is the so-called probabilistic method, pioneered by Paul Erdős). On the other hand, combinatorial techniques are of fundamental importance in probability theory, and there are many fascinating questions to ask about random combinatorial structures and processes.