The Knowledge Exchange Hub for the Mathematical Sciences has commissioned the award winning Active Bystander Training Company to deliver a focused, practical session designed to empower our community to challenge unacceptable behaviours — including those that may have become normalised over time.

Wednesday 20 May, 10:00 am - 11:30 am. Online and free

Science in the Age of Algorithms: Rethinking Discovery in the AI Era

Participants:

  • Sendhil Mullainathan, Peter de Florez Professor of Economics & Computer Science, MIT (and Sanjaya Lall Visiting Professor, Oxford)
  • Sir Nigel Shadbolt, Principal of Jesus College and Professor of Computer Science, Oxford
  • Dr Raia Hadsell, VP of Research, Google DeepMind
  • Chair: Professor Johannes Abeler, Professor & Head of Economics Department, Oxford

5 pm, 19 May, Andrew Wiles Building

Tue, 02 Jun 2026
14:45

Bernoulli flow and optimal delocalisation for Erdös-Rényi graphs

Joscha Henheik
Abstract

We present a new dynamical way of establishing local laws for sparse random matrices, the Bernoulli flow method. It is based on a Markovian jump process, where the entries of the matrix jump independently from 0 to 1 at rate one. As an application, we show optimal (up to a constant) isotropic delocalisation for bulk eigenvectors of Erdös-Rényi graphs with edge probability p \geq (log N)^2/N. In the same regime, we obtain a local law with optimal (up to a constant) error bounds. Joint work with Antti Knowles.

Congratulations to the following graduate students:

Jad Hamdan - for his contributions to the Random Matrix Theory group through supporting and welcoming visitors, organising social events, and helping foster a collegial and inclusive group culture. He has also been a dependable source of support for junior members and an active contributor to seminars, group dinners, and wider group life.

Mechanical Reinforcement of Graphene via Wrinkling
Vella, D Arjmandi-Tash, H Prasad, R Liu, H Verbiest, G Alijani, F npj 2D Materials and Applications
Fri, 22 May 2026
12:00
L5

The exceptional holography of the M5-brane

Oscar Varela
(Utah State University)
Abstract

The characterisation of the physics of the M5-brane remains an important open problem in string theory. While the superconformal field theory that resides on a planar M5-brane in flat space is poorly understood, other configurations involving M5-branes wrapped on certain manifolds have well-known superconformal field theory descriptions, including class S field theories. In this talk, I will use new methods based on exceptional generalised geometry to describe the gravity duals of class S field theories, compute a universal sector of their light-operator spectrum, and provide, for the first time, a holographic match of their superconformal index.

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