Brett Kolesnik

University of Warwick
Department of Statistics

Email:

Research: Probability theory. Random structures, geometry, algorithms, processes, etc. Interactions with combinatorics.

Probability at Warwick (P@W)

Teaching:

• 2025–26:
  

  ST323/412 Multivariate Statistics

• 2024–25:
  ST323/412 Multivariate Statistics

  ST921 Statistical Frontiers
  ST924 Random Graphs

Office: Zeeman B0.17

CV: PhD Mathematics, University of British Columbia, advised by Omer Angel in the UBC Probability Group. NSERC of Canada Postdoctoral Fellowship and Visiting Assistant Professorships at UC Berkeley and San Diego. Florence Nightingale Bicentennial Fellow in Statistics at the University of Oxford and Senior Demy at Magdalen College.

BIRS BP: In April 2024, we organized a workshop on Bootstrap Percolation & its Applications at the Banff International Research Station (BIRS) together with József Balogh, Janko Gravner, Karen Gunderson and Rob Morris.

Coauthors:

Daniel Ahlberg, David Aldous, Omer Angel, Eleanor Archer, Zsolt Bartha, Michal Bassan, Matthew Buckland, Serte Donderwinkel, Persi Diaconis, Janko Gravner, Ivailo Hartarsky, Emmanuel Jacob, Gal Kronenberg, Grégory Miermont, Rivka Mitchell, Sam Olesker-Taylor, Tomasz Przybyłowski, Mario Sanchez, Bruno Schapira, Daniel Valesin, Nick Wormald

Papers:

• To see the forest for the trees: On the infinite divisibility of unlabeled forests
  w/ Michal Bassan and Serte Donderwinkel
  arXiv:2507.16650
• The snake in the Brownian sphere
  w/ Omer Angel, Emmanuel Jacob and Grégory Miermont
  arXiv:2502:13074
• Tournament score sequences, Erdős–Ginzburg–Ziv numbers, and the Lévy–Khintchine method
  w/ Michal Bassan and Serte Donderwinkel
  arXiv:2407.01411
• Graphical sequences and plane trees
  w/ Michal Bassan and Serte Donderwinkel
  arXiv: 2406.05110
• Catalan percolation
  w/ Eleanor Archer, Ivailo Hartarsky, Sam Olesker-Taylor, Bruno Schapira and Daniel Valesin
  Probability Theory and Related Fields
  Special Issue: In celebration of Geoffrey Grimmett's 70th birthday
  arXiv:2404.19583
• Critical beta-splitting, via contraction
  Electronic Communications in Probability
  arXiv:2404.16021
• Sinai excursions: An analogue of Sparre Andersen's formula for the area process of a random walk
  w/ Serte Donderwinkel
  arXiv:2403.12941
• Tournaments and random walks
  w/ Serte Donderwinkel
  arXiv:2403.12940
• Random walks on Coxeter interchange graphs
  w/ Matthew Buckland, Rivka Mitchell and Tomasz Przybyłowski
  Electronic Journal of Probability
  arXiv:2401.17210
• Coxeter interchange graphs
  w/ Rivka Mitchell and Tomasz Przybyłowski
  Annals of Combinatorics
  arXiv:2312.04532
• Annihilating branching Brownian motion
  w/ Daniel Ahlberg and Omer Angel
  International Mathematics Research Notices
  arXiv:2312.03669
• H-percolation with a random H
  w/ Zsolt Bartha and Gal Kronenberg
  Electronic Communications in Probability
  arXiv:2312.03633
• Coxeter tournaments
  w/ Mario Sanchez
  arXiv:2302.14002
• The asymptotic number of score sequences
  Combinatorica
  arXiv:2209.13563
• Large deviations of the greedy independent set algorithm on sparse random graphs
  Random Structures & Algorithms
  arXiv:2011.04613
• The geometry of random tournaments
  w/ Mario Sanchez
  Discrete & Computational Geometry
  arXiv:2009.09322
• Weakly saturated random graphs
  w/ Zsolt Bartha
  Random Structures & Algorithms
  arXiv:2007.14716
• Transitive closure in a polluted environment
  w/ Janko Gravner
  Annals of Applied Probability
  arXiv:1910.01800
• Randomized sequential importance sampling for estimating the number of perfect matchings in bipartite graphs
  w/ Persi Diaconis
  Advances in Applied Mathematics
  arXiv:1907.02333
• To stay discovered: On tournament mean score sequences and the Bradley–Terry model
  w/ David Aldous
  Stochastic Processes and their Applications
  Special Issue: In Memoriam: Larry Shepp
  arXiv:1811.06662
• The sharp K4-percolation threshold on the Erdős–Rényi random graph
  Electronic Journal of Probability
  arXiv:1705.08882
• Large deviations for subcritical bootstrap percolation on the Erdős–Renyi graph
  w/ Omer Angel
  Journal of Statistical Physics
  arXiv:1705.06815
• Sharp thresholds for contagious sets in random graphs
  w/ Omer Angel
  Annals of Applied Probability
  arXiv:1611.10167
• Stability of geodesics in the Brownian map
  w/ Omer Angel and Grégory Miermont
  Annals of Probability
  arXiv:1502.04576
• Lower bounds for the isoperimetric numbers of random regular graphs
  w/ Nick Wormald
  SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics
  arXiv:1311.6555