Photo by Henrike Grützner at MPI MiS.

Şefika Kuzgun

Postdoctoral Researcher
Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences (MPI MiS), Leipzig
E-mail: sefika.kuzgun@mis.mpg.de
  About me

I am currently a Postdoc in the research group of Prof. Dr. Felix Otto at Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Leipzig. Before this, I was a Postdoc at University of Rochester, Department of Mathematics with Professor Carl Mueller and Professor Arjun Krishnan. I received my Ph.D. in 2022 from University of Kansas in Mathematics under the supervision of Professor David Nualart. I do research in stochastic analysis and SPDEs. Here is my vitae. I am featured in Math Planck People Potrait Series.

I am highly motivated to organize events to promote equal oppurtunity in academia. To see more details about the activities I have been a part of, please check Service.

In my spare time, I enjoy exercising, dancing freely myself, traveling, and reading/listening books. I am a member of a bookclub in Leipzig. I grew up in Türkiye and am a GIANT brain aneurysm survivor since September 2025.



  Research

   Publications and preprints
  1. Intermittency of geometric Brownian motion on SL(n). (Joint with Felix Otto and Christian Wagner.) Arxiv.
  2. Time-dependent averages of a critical long-range stochastic heat equation. (Joint with Ran Tao.) To appear in Bernoulli. Arxiv.
  3. On the radius of self-repellent fractional Brownian motion. (Joint with Le Chen, Carl Mueller and Panqiu Xia.) Journal of Statistical Physics. Arxiv.
  4. Convergence of densities of spatial averages of the parabolic Anderson model driven by colored noise. (Joint with David Nualart.) Stochastics. Arxiv.
  5. Convergence of densities of spatial averages of stochastic heat equation. (Joint with David Nualart.) Stochastic Processes and Applications. Arxiv.
  6. Feynman-Kac formula for iterated derivatives of the parabolic Anderson model. (Joint with David Nualart.) Potential Analysis. Arxiv.
  7. Rate of convergence in the Breuer-Major theorem via chaos expansions. (Joint with David Nualart.) Stochastic Analysis and Applications. Arxiv.
   Theses    Other    Scientific Agenda    Organizing

  Service

  Service and Outreach

Since 2024, together with Meltem Ünel, I am organizing probability schools in Türkiye with the generous support of CIMPA to promote equal opportunity in academia and cultivate the research in probability in and around Türkiye. See Organizing for the list of the schools and this article about the school in 2025.

During the academic year 2023/24, I have contributed to the efforts of building a Women in Mathematics group at University of Rochester.

After a major earthquake struck south east of Türkiye in February 2023, I cofounded a math support platform to assist college students with their coursework and alleviate the earthquake's impact on education. This platform aimed to provide academic resources and support to students who were affected by the disaster, ultimately helping them to continue their studies and succeed in their math classes. See this nice article by Emine Yıldırım about our math support platform.

I founded the Directed Reading Program Türkiye together with Feride Ceren Köse and Oğuz Şavk, and I was among the organizers during 2021 and 2022 and a scientific committee member during 2023 and 2024. Besides, I had a unique experience of mentoring students: Sahra Karakoç, Zeynel Uluşan, Hamit Alp Cömert, Fatma Melike Güler, Elisa Tahiri. The linked videos are their presentations at the end of the program in corresponding year.

I am the past president of University of Kansas Student Chapter of Association for Women in Mathematics (2020-2021). In addition to hosting regular weekly seminars, I initiated the special online meetings for graduate students to socialize during Covid-19 conditions. I served on the executive board of University of Kansas Student Chapter of the American Mathematical Society for two years, first as the secretary and then as vice president. During these two years, we organized for example, a series of seminars for professional development, a mentoring program for beginning graduate students and study groups for qualifying exams.

I had been a volunteer for the April Math Awareness Month activities at the University of Kansas, where local fifth graders spend a day with graduate students playing math related games (2019-2022).


   Links

Personal links:

Helpful links: