Colin Desmarais

About me

I am currently a PostDoc at the Institue of Discrete Mathematics and Geometry at TU Wien with Prof. Benedikt Stufler, working on limits of random networks.

Previously I was a PostDoc in the Biomathematics at the University of Vienna with Emmanuel Schertzer.

I completed my PhD under the supervision of Cecilia Holmgren and Svante Janson at Uppsala University, my doctoral thesis is titled Decorating trees grown in urns.

My masters studies were completed at the University of Manitoba under the supervision of David. S. Guderson, my masters thesis is titled On partition regular systems.

My research interests lie primarly in probability, with a particular focus on random trees and and random tree-like networks. I also work in biomathematics with a focus on population genetics, and in combinatorics with a focus on graph theory.

Colin Desmarais

colin(dot)desmarais(at)tuwien.ac.at

Institute of Discrete Mathematics and Geometry
TU Wien
Vienna, Austria
Google Scholar

Research

Preprints

K-branching random walk with noisy selection: large population limits and phase transitions, with Emmanuel Schertzer and Zsofia Talyigas, arXiv:2509.26254, (2025).

Journal Publications

Depths in random recursive metric spaces, Journal of Applied Probability 61 (2024), 1448-1462.

Broadcasting-induced colorings of preferential attachment trees, with Cecilia Holmgren and Stephan Wagner, Random Structures and Algorithms 63 (2023), 363-405.

Depths in hooking networks, with Hosam Mahmoud, Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences 36 (2022), 941-949.

Normal Limit Laws for Vertex Degrees in Randomly Grown Hooking Networks and Bipolar Networks, with Cecilia Holmgren, Electronic Journal of Combinatorics 27 (2020), P2.45.

Testing bi-orderability of knot groups, with Adam Clay and Patrick Naylor, Canadian Mathematical Bulletin 59 (2016), 472-482.

Conference Proceedings

The root cluster after percolation on preferential attachment trees, with Cecilia Holmgren and Stephan Wagner, in Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Combinatorics, Graph Theory and Applications (EUROCOMB’23), 343-348, MUNI Journals, 2023.

Distributed training and scalability for the particle clustering method UCluster, with Olga Sunneborn Gudnadottir, Daniel Gedon, Karl Bengtsson Bernander, Raazesh Sainudiin, and Rebeca Gonzalez Suarez, in EPJ Web of Conferences (CHEP 2021) 251 article 02054, EDP Sciences, 2021.

Degree distributions of generalized hooking networks, with Cecilia Holmgren, in 2019 Proceedings of the Sixteenth Workshop on Analytic Algorithms and Combinatorics (ANALCO) 103-110, SIAM, 2019.

Posters
The following are posters of my research from my bachelors and masters.

Constructions of hypergraphs free of certain 3-uniform 3-partite hypergraphs, with David. S. Gunderson, 2016.

Testing bi-orderability of knot groups, with Adam Clay and Patrick Naylor, undergraduate summer research project 2014.

Negacyclic weighing matrices, with Robert Craigen and Patrick Naylor, undergraduate summer research project 2013.

Miscellaneous

Non-bi-orderability of knot groups from Dehn's presentation, with Adam Clay, part of undergraduate research project 2015.

Teaching

TU Wien

Winter Semester 2025

Analysis for Computer Science I 104.634 (TA)

Winter Semester 2024

Discrete Mathematics for Computer Scientists 104.272 (Masters level) (TA)

University of Vienna

Summer Semester 2024

Linear Algebra II 250083 (TA)

Summer Semester 2023

Analysis I 250011 (TA)

Uppsala University

Spring Semester 2022

Combinatorics 1MA020 (Lecturer)

Fall Semester 2021

Several Variable Calculus 1MA017 (TA)

Transform Methods 1MA034 (TA)

Spring Semester 2021

Combinatorics 1MA020 (Lecturer)

Fall Semester 2020

Linear Algebra II 1MA024 (TA)

Spring Semester 2020

Combinatorics 1MA020 (Lecturer)

Fall Semester 2019

Linear Algebra II 1MA024 (TA)

Spring Semester 2019

Linear Algebra and Geometry I 1MA025 (TA)

Fall Semester 2018

Transform Methods 1MA034 (TA)

Fall Semester 2017

Several Variable Calculus 1MA016 (TA)