Research groups and grand challenges

FiRST brings together leading mathematicians in Finland to collaborate towards the advancement of the common research themes of "Randomness and Structures". It aims at the mathematical developments at the cross-roads between probabilistic methods, quantum and conformal field theory, geometric and harmonic analysis, partial differential equations and analytic number theory.
Our groups

By clicking on the links below you access the web-pages of the individual group.

A brief description of how the groups collaborate on key research questions follows at the bottom of this page.

Grand Challenges

Our research questions are central and timely topics in contemporary mathematics, and advances in them will have an immediate strong impact on their respective mathematical research fields. In order to give an idea of our research interests,  we mention here several 'Grand Challenges'  and the groups most directly involved in their study. We believe that even partial advances in the investigation of the problems listed below could constitute considerable achievements.

  • Robust methods for conformal analysis of random phenomena (PrM, GeA, MPh, CFT, RGe,QCM)

  • Fully fledged conformal field theories as scaling limits of lattice systems (CFT, MPh, HA, PrM )

  • Solution of Morrey's problem on vector-valued variational calculus (HA, QCM, PrM, GeA )

  • Optimal solution of the prescribed Jacobian problem (HA, QCM, GeA)

  • Spectral continuity for deterministic and random periodic problems (PDE, PrM, MPh )

  • Sarnak's conjecture on the random behaviour of the Liouville function (ANT)

  • Robust methods for non-Gaussian approximations of critical chaos applying to the Riemann zeta statistics (PrM, ANT, HA )

  • Novel distribution free methods for analyzing functional observations (StM, HA, PrM)

  • New inference algorithms for complex models and high dimensional data (ALG, PrM, QCM, PDE, GeA)

  • Mathematical foundations of non-equilibrium physics: large scale structure of solutions to dynamical systems (MPh, PDE, PrM, ALG )

FiRST alumni

Aleksis Vuoksenmaa – Starting 1/26, Postdoctoral researcher, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, host Sergio Simonella 

Alexander Shamov

Carlos Mudarra Diaz Malaguilla

Delara Behzad – Postdoc at Utrecht University in the group of (Jan-May 2024)

Eugenia Franco –

Filippo Zinetti

Germain van Bever

Jaakko Sinko – Post Doc, University of Helsinki, insurance mathematics. 

Jani Karjalainen

Janne Junnila – in FiRST until the summer of 2025, now a postdoc at KTH Royal Institute of Technology 

Jarkko Siltakoski - Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Jyväskylä

Jarmo Jääskeläinen - University Lecturer, University of Helsinki, Viikki campus 

Johannes Lintula 

Joni Teräväinen - in FiRST 2022-2024, now Assistant Professor at University of Cambridge (UK) 

Joonas Karppinen

Juho Salmensuu – in FiRST in 2022, now in private sector 

(Juho) Emil Vuorinen – in FiRST until 2024, now in private sector.

Kalle Koskinen -

Kaushik Mohanta 

Kin Yau James Wong – PhD student in Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 

Lin Wu - 

Lukas Schoug – in FiRST 2022-2024, now a research fellow at KTH Royal Institute of Technology 

Marina Amado Ferreira - CNRS Researcher (permanent position) in Toulouse Mathematics Institute (IMT), University of Toulouse, France 

Martin Cech – in FiRST 2022-2024, now Assistant Professor at Charles University (Prague) 

Matteo Mucciconi

Mengdi Wang – in FiRST 2023–2024, now Post-doc at EPFL (Lausanne) 

Michael Mcauley – postdoc at FiRST, now Assistant Lecturer at Technological University Dublin 

Nourhan Shafik – PhD at FiRST in Aalto University, a postdoc at the University of Helsinki since 2024 

Olli Järviniemi - in FiRST 2022-2023, now working at AI Security Institute (UK) 

Olli Hirviniemi

Ondrej Bouchala 

Qingxin Yang -

Raazesh Sainudiin

Saara Sarsa

Sami Helander

Sami Virtanen

Sebastian Zuniga-Alterman – in FiRST 2023-2026, now Post-doc at University of New South Wales (Canberra) 

Stelios Sachpazis – in FiRST 2023-2025, now Post-doc at Charles University (Prague) 

Toni Ikonen – Post Doc, University of Fribourg, Switzerland 

Tuomas Tuukkanen –

Valentin Garino

Xiao Zhong – in FiRST until 2025, now Professor at Sun Yat-sen University, China 

Xilin Zhou

Yaël Dillies –

Yan Shusen 

Yu-Chen Sun – in FiRST 2022-2024, now Post-doc at University of Bristol (UK) 

Jesse Reimann –

Kexing Ying –

Anatole Dedecker –