A conference in honor of Persi Diaconis' 60th birthday will be held at the University of California at San Diego, starting Thursday afternoon, January 27, 2005, and ending in the early evening of Saturday, January 29, 2005. Click here for a listing of Persi Diaconis' papers.
Click here for a listing of his collaborators.

The speakers will include Persi Diaconis, David Aldous, Ron Graham, Susan Holmes, Barry Mazur, Robin Pemantle, Eric Rains, Laurent Saloff-Coste, and Donald Ylvisaker.

There will be a conference dinner on Friday evening, January 28, 2005, at the UCSD Faculty Club. The cost is $25 per person. If you plan to attend the dinner, please write a check for $25 times the number of people in your party, and send it to Anita McKee, Department of Mathematics, UCSD, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla CA 92093-0112, USA. Your check should be made payable to UC Regents and should arrive before Wednesday, January 12, 2005.

If you are interested in attending the conference please send email to Robert Guralnick (guralnic@usc.edu) and Anita McKee (amckee@ucsd.edu); please indicate your dates of attendance.

We have received funding from various sources and in particular from the National Security Agency. We hope to be able to at least partially fund the travel expenses of postdocs and graduate students who attend the conference. If you are interested in applying for such funding, please mention that in your registration email.


SCHEDULE

Thursday, January 27, 2005
Natural Sciences Building, Room 1205

  • 1:30-2:00 p.m.: Registration
  • 2:05-2:15 p.m.: Welcoming remarks
  • 2:15-3:15 p.m.: Susan Holmes, "Even Odds"
  • 3:15-4:00 p.m.: Refreshment Break
  • 4:00-5:00 p.m.: Ron Graham, "Unfinished Business"

    Friday, January 28, 2005
    Natural Sciences Building, Room 1205

  • 9:30-10:30 a.m.: Eric Rains, "Random Matrix Perturbations". Two papers related to this talk can be obtained by clicking here and here (Section 2 is most relevant).
  • 10:30-11:15 a.m.: Refreshment Break
  • 11:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m.: Laurent Saloff-Coste, "Some Problems Concerning Gaussian Convolution Semigroups on Compact Groups".
  • 12:15-1:45 p.m.: Lunch Break (on your own)
  • 1:45-2:45 p.m.: Donald Ylvisaker, "Lotteries". Slides from the talk file 1, file 2, file 3.
  • 2.45-3:30 p.m.: Refreshment Break
  • 3:30-5:00 p.m.: Open session to discuss connections with Diaconis' work. Contributions by Jason Fulman, Hani Doss, Martin Hildebrand, Jim Pitman.
  • 5:30-6:30 p.m.: No host bar, UCSD Faculty Club
  • 6:30 p.m.: Conference Dinner, UCSD Faculty Club ($25 per person -- prepayment required by January 12, 2005, see above).

    Saturday, January 29, 2005
    Center Hall, Room 115 (note change of room from that on Thursday and Friday)

  • 9:30-10:30 a.m.: Robin Pemantle, "Multivariate asymptotics (why probabilists need to know math)". For an abstract, click here.
  • 10:30-11:00 a.m.: Refreshment Break
  • 11:00 a.m.-12:00 noon: Barry Mazur, "It is a Story" Provisional notes from Mazur's talk are available by clicking here. These will be updated with references and other items at a later date.
  • 12:00 noon-2:00 p.m.: Lunch Break (on your own)
  • 2:00-3:00 p.m.: David Aldous, "Constrained Ising Models: From One-Dimensional Theory to Storage in Ad Hoc Networks"
  • 3:00-3:30 p.m.: Break
  • 3:30-4:30 p.m.: Persi Diaconis, "A Few of My Favorite Things"
    PARTICIPANTS
    SHUTTLE TRANSPORTATION TO/FROM HOTELS
    For information on shuttles to and from the hotels, click here.
    PARKING INFORMATION
    Parking permits are required in order to park on campus on Thursday and Friday. One day permits (for yellow and green spaces only) costing $6 per day are available from a machine at the Gilman Drive information kiosk. The Gilman Drive kiosk is on the right as you enter campus from the south on Gilman Drive. There are machines in some other parking lots on campus. Permits can also be obtained from the parking office in the Gilman Parking Structure. For a map showing parking areas click here. Parking lots P102 and P103 at the South end of campus near Revelle College are closest to the conference site on Thursday, Friday -- the Natural Sciences Building. Parking lot P602 or the Gilman Parking Structure are near (1-2 blocks from) Center Hall, the conference location on Saturday.
    HOTEL INFORMATION

    Three hotels have agreed to special rates for the conference. Please make reservations directly with the hotel of your choosing.

    Radisson Hotel La Jolla
    3299 Holiday Court
    La Jolla, CA 92037
    (858) 452-4010 - direct
    (858) 453-9909 - fax
    Individual reservations can be made by calling the Hotel directly at (858) 453-5500, or by calling Radisson Reservations at (800) 333-3333. Please reference "Diaconis Conference" to receive the group rate. Rates are $129 for a single room plus $10 per person (for up to three extra persons). The hotel is within walking distance of campus (it is a fairly good walk and somewhat uphill). There are a limited number of rooms at this rate, so participants are encouraged to make early reservations.

    Marriott Residence Inn $129 (+ tax) per night.
    8901 Gilman Drive
    La Jolla, California 92037 USA
    Phone: 1-858-587-1770
    Fax: 1-858-552-0387
    Toll-Free: 1-800-876-1778
    Please reference "Diaconis Conference" to get this rate. This hotel is within walking distance although it is a good walk and mostly uphill.

    Del Mar Inn $69 (+ tax) per night (Sunday-Thursday nights), $99 (+ tax) per night (Friday and Saturday nights).
    720 Camino Del Mar, Del Mar, CA 92014
    Local - (858) 755-9765; Toll free - 1 800 451-4515
    Ask for the UCSD rate (mention Mathematics if they ask for a department and if asked, the mail code for the Mathematics department is 0112). This is the furthest away, but they have shuttles to campus. It is very close to the ocean.


    FURTHER LOCAL INFORMATION
    ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
    Joe Buhler, Steve Freeman, Ron Graham, Robert Guralnick (chair), Susan Holmes, Igor Pak, Charles Radin, Laurent Saloff-Coste, Ruth Williams, Donald Ylvisaker.
    Acknowledgements: The artwork at the head of this page was kindly provided by Henry Segerman. Google links for participants were provided by Jim Pitman.

    Last updated: February 5, 2005