Natasha Blitvic, Ph.D.

Natasha Blitvic is reader in mathematical sciences at Queen Mary University of London. She is a pure mathematician working on the foundations of probability theory. Her research seeks to characterize two classes of probabilistic phenomena: positivity — that is, ways in which probabilistic intuition carries over to unexpected settings, such as algebra or combinatorics — and universality, according to which certain probabilistic structures tend to recur in multiple, seemingly unrelated scenarios.

As a Simons Foundation Pivot Fellow, Blitvic will bring her expertise in describing large-scale consequences of small-scale fluctuations/interactions to bear on scaling problems of marine microbial ecology. She will be hosted by Roman Stocker of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zürich), a pioneer of the direct observation of marine microbial interactions in the laboratory and field. Together they will seek to axiomatize and develop theoretical and experimental frameworks to understand the scaling of marine microbial interactions and describe their cumulative impacts on the marine ecosystem and ultimately the climate.