Elizabeth Lee Wilmer is an American mathematician known for her work on

Markov chain mixing time In probability theory, the mixing time of a Markov chain is the time until the Markov chain is "close" to its steady state distribution. More precisely, a fundamental result about Markov chains is that a finite state irreducible aperiodic chain has ...

s. She is a professor, and former department head, of mathematics at

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational liberal arts college in the United S ...

. As a 16-year-old high school student at

Stuyvesant High School Stuyvesant High School (pronounced ), commonly referred to among its students as Stuy (pronounced ), is a State school, public university-preparatory school, college-preparatory, Specialized high schools in New York City, specialized high school ...

and captain of the school mathematics team, Wilmer won second place in the

Westinghouse Science Talent Search Westinghouse may refer to: Businesses Current companies *Westinghouse Electric Corporation, the company that manages the Westinghouse brand, with licensees: **Westinghouse Electric Company, providing nuclear power-related services **Westinghou ...

in 1987, for a project involving 3-coloring of graphs. The first place winner that year was also female, marking the first year that the top two prizes both went to women. As an undergraduate at

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

, she led the university's team that won the first

Mathematical Contest in Modeling The International Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM) is a multi-day mathematical modelling competition held annually in USA, during the first or second weekend in February, since 1985 by COMAP and sponsored by SIAM and INFORMS. It is distinguis ...

of the

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is a professional society dedicated to applied mathematics, computational science, and data science through research, publications, and community. SIAM is the world's largest scientific socie ...

, and she was one of the two inaugural winners of the

Alice T. Schafer Prize The Alice T. Schafer Mathematics Prize is given annually to an undergraduate woman for excellence in mathematics by the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM). The prize, which carries a monetary award, is named for former AWM president and fou ...

of the

Association for Women in Mathematics The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) is a professional society whose mission is to encourage women and girls to study and to have active careers in the mathematical sciences, and to promote equal opportunity for and the equal treatment o ...

for excellence by a woman in undergraduate mathematics. She graduated from Harvard in 1991, and completed her Ph.D. at Harvard in 1999. She worked with

Persi Diaconis Persi Warren Diaconis (; born January 31, 1945) is an American mathematician of Greek descent and former professional magician. He is the Mary V. Sunseri Professor of Statistics and Mathematics at Stanford University. He is particularly known f ...

for her doctoral dissertation, ''Exact Rates of Convergence for Some Simple Non-Reversible Markov Chains'', but after Diaconis moved from Harvard to Stanford in 1997 her official

doctoral advisor A doctoral advisor (also dissertation director, dissertation advisor; or doctoral supervisor) is a member of a university faculty whose role is to guide graduate students who are candidates for a doctorate, helping them select coursework, as well ...

became Joe Harris. With David A. Levin and

Yuval Peres Yuval Peres ( he, יובל פרס; born 5 October 1963) is a mathematician known for his research in probability theory, ergodic theory, mathematical analysis, theoretical computer science, and in particular for topics such as fractals and Hausdo ...

, Wilmer is the author of the textbook ''

Markov Chains and Mixing Times ''Markov Chains and Mixing Times'' is a book on Markov chain mixing times. The second edition was written by David A. Levin, and Yuval Peres. Elizabeth Wilmer was a co-author on the first edition and is credited as a contributor to the second edit ...

'' (American Mathematical Society, 2009; 2nd ed., 2017).

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilmer, Elizabeth Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century American mathematicians American women mathematicians Probability theorists Harvard College alumni Oberlin College faculty 21st-century American women