Summary
How can we understand the underlying structure of a large-scale network? What local constraints impact the running time of an algorithm? In recent years physics intuition has become fruitful in tackling such questions. Key to this is the notion of a phase transition, that is, a drastic change in macroscopic behaviour (e.g. matter changing from frozen to liquid at some critical temperature) in models governed by local interactions. We aim to connect different communities –combinatorics, algorithms and probability– through the lens of such transitions. This will be achieved through three interactive 4-day workshops focused on problem-solving and collaboration.
- Phase Transitions in Probability (30 March to 2 April 2026)
- Phase Transitions in Combinatorics (14 to 17 April 2026)
- Phase Transitions in Algorithms (26 to 29 May 2026)
This Research Semester Programme PhaseCAP is organized by:
Ferenc Bencs (CWI), Jop Briët (CWI), Serte Donderwinkel (Groningen University), Carla Groenland (TU Delft), Ross Kang (University of Amsterdam), Noela Müller (TU Eindhoven), Guus Regts (University of Amsterdam).
List of invited participants
Last updated 19 December 2025
* indicates invited speaker
** indicates speaker at public afternoon
Marie Albenque (CNRS)
Anurag Bishnoi (TUD)
**Tom Bohman (CMU)
Márton Borbényi (ELTE)
Pjotr Buys (UvA)
Stijn Cambie (KU Leuven)
Sarah Cannon (Claremont McKenna)
Philippe van Dordrecht (CWI)
*Guillaume Chapuy (CNRS)
**Amin Coja-Oghlan (TU Dortmund)
David Conlon (CalTech)
Péter Csikvári (ELTE)
Yatin Dandi (EPFL)
Ewan Davies (Colorado State)
Holger Dell (Copenhagen)
Anita Dürr (MPII)
Jacob Fox (Stanford)
Andreas Galanis (OXford)
David Gamarnik (MIT)
Dion Gijswijt (TUD)
**Leslie Goldberg (Oxford)
**Christina Goldschmidt (Oxford)
Heng Guo (Edinburgh)
Thekla Hamm (TUE)
**Penny Haxell (Waterloo)
Rajat Hazra (Leiden)
Markus Heydenreich (Augsburg)
*Frank den Hollander (Leiden)
Aukosh Jagannath (Waterloo)
Mark Jerrum (QMUL)
*Matthew Jenssen (KCL)
*Mihyun Kang (TU Graz)
Júlia Komjáthy (TUD)
Florent Krzakala (EPFL)
Aiya Kuchukova (Georgia Tech)
Matthew Kwan (IST Austria)
*Leticia Mattos (Heidelberg)
Xandru Mifsud (Oxford)
Cris Moore (Santa Fe)
**Rob Morris (IMPA)
*Jesper Nederlof (Utrecht)
Konstantinos Panagiotou (LMU Munich)
Viresh Patel (QMUL)
Guillem Perarnau (UPC)
Will Perkins (Georgia Tech)
Gábor Pete (Rényi)
Aaditya Potukuchi (MPI-SWS)
Anant Ravi (TUD)
Marc Roth (QMUL)
Wojciech Samotij (Tel Aviv)
Alex Scott (Oxford)
Davi Castro Silva (Cambridge)
Fiona Skerman (Uppsala)
Paulina Smolarova (Oxford)
*Joel Spencer (NYU)
Clara Stegehuis (Twente)
Karol Węgrzycki (MPII)
Corrine Yap (Georgia Tech)
Yitong Yin (Nanjing)
*Lenka Zdeborová (EPFL)
Gabriëlle Zwanenveld (UvA)
More information will follow.
In addition to support from the CWI, our research semester programme
acknowledges the support from the Gravitation Consortium NETWORKS of the
Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW); from the Dutch
Science Council (NWO); from the 4TU+.AMI under the auspices of a Strategic
Research Initiative; and from the Korteweg-de Vries Institute for
Mathematics of the University of Amsterdam.
