Student
Alice Callegaro

Working on spatial dependence in branching structures (Supervisor: Matt Roberts)

Working on spatial dependence in branching structures (Supervisor: Matt Roberts)

Alice completed her MSc degree in Mathematics at the University of Padua in 2017. In her Master’s thesis she investigated models of the diffusion of innovation in social networks. She is particularly interested in probability theory and she is fascinated by how mathematics can be employed to address problems from the real world, which made her keen on the SAMBa program. Outside mathematics, she enjoys travelling, doing sports and reading.

Research project title:
Spatial fragmentations

Supervisor(s):
Matt Roberts, Marcel Ortgiese

Project description:
Fragmentation, the breaking up of large structures into smaller pieces, occurs naturally in many situations, from earthquakes to hard drives. The mathematical definition of a fragmentation process involves an object that breaks up at random into smaller pieces, which then break up themselves, and so on; but with the rule that the way in which a piece breaks up must depend only on its size. This condition is a huge simplification which allows rigorous study, but prevents traditional mathematical models from accurately representing the vast array of real-life possibilities. In her Ph.D., Alice focused on spatial fragmentations, in which the speed at which pieces fragment depends on their shape in a non-trivial way.