3. Postdoctoral Program - MSRI

Example of a Summer Graduate Workshop Report
``Give Ivan and Tuca a raise. This got me past the first week. ‘’ At the end of the
workshop, the TA’s distributed a 35-page note that included summaries of all the lectures
and the exercises the speakers posted during the lectures. This will hopefully be an aide
to students as they review what they learned during the workshop. One of the problem
sessions was devoted to discussing open problems in random matrix theory, as requested
by many students during the workshop.
Many of the participants seem to have enjoyed the opportunity to be exposed to
the many aspects of random matrix theory. However, it is unfortunate that some of
graduate students who wished to participate in the workshop were turned down due to the
lack of space. Some of these students were at the beginning of their studies in random
matrix theory, and could have benefitted from the workshop enormously. On the other
hand, some of the participants in the workshop, unfortunately, were not particularly
motivated in the field. It would have been helpful if the organizers were involved in the
participant selection process. Many of the students who were excluded were students of
the organizers of the semester program in random matrix theory in the fall of 2010.
Some positive comments from participants are:
* I was introduced to a field that is close to my research to a good degree of depth. I
learned a number of interesting techniques, some of them directly, from the people who
first came up with them or with their most important applications. I met other people with
similar interests and with expertise in areas that are complementary to the ones I know
well and this may further future collaborations.
* This workshop presented a nice picture of the problems of inherent in random matrix
theory, and also pave a good taste for the techniques that have been used to attack them.
Completely worth my time!
Some other comments are:
* Needed more time devoted to applications
* Sometimes a recap of the "big picture" would have been nice.
Lectures from the workshop are available on streaming video at the
MSRI website, http://www.msri.org/calendar/sgw/WorkshopInfo/485/
show_sgw.
I.C-13