Persi Diaconis

About

Persi Diaconis is the Mary V. Sunseri Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and a Professor of Mathematics at Stanford University. He is a mathematician and statistician working in probability, combinatorics, and group theory with a focus on applications to statistics and scientific computing. A specialty of his is the rates of convergence of Markov chains. His current interests include adapting many mathematical developments to provide useful insights to practitioners in large real-world simulations.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Mathematics
• Sociology
• Mathematical economics
• Artificial Intelligence
• Art
• Epistemology
• Philosophy
• History
• Classics

Selected publications

• Card guessing with partial feedback

  Combinatorics Probability Computing · 2021 · 16 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Consider the following experiment: a deck with m copies of n different card types is randomly shuffled, and a guesser attempts to guess the cards sequentially as they are drawn. Each time a guess is made, some amount of ‘feedback’ is given. For example, one could tell the guesser the true identity of the card they just guessed (the complete feedback model) or they could be told nothing at all (the no feedback model). In this paper we explore a partial feedback model, where upon guessing…

  DOI

• Guessing about Guessing: Practical Strategies for Card Guessing with Feedback

  American Mathematical Monthly · 2022 · 14 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  In simple card games, cards are dealt one at a time and the player guesses each card sequentially. We study problems where feedback (e.g., correct/incorrect) is given after each guess. For decks with repeated values (as in blackjack where suits do not matter), the optimal strategy differs from the “greedy strategy” (of guessing a most likely card each round). Further, both optimal and greedy strategies are far too complicated for real-time use by human players. Our main results show that simple…

  PublisherDOI

• Double coset Markov chains

  Forum of Mathematics Sigma · 2023-01-01 · 8 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Let G be a finite group. Let $H, K$ be subgroups of G and $H \backslash G / K$ the double coset space. If Q is a probability on G which is constant on conjugacy classes ( $Q(s^{-1} t s) = Q(t)$ ), then the random walk driven by Q on G projects to a Markov chain on $H \backslash G /K$ . This allows analysis of the lumped chain using the representation theory of G . Examples include coagulation-fragmentation processes and natural Markov chains on contingency tables. Our main example proje…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Mathematics of Shuffling Cards

  American Mathematical Society eBooks · 2023-03-20 · 7 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Approximate exchangeability and de Finetti priors in 2022

  Scandinavian Journal of Statistics · 2022-08-29 · 4 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This is a review paper, beginning with de Finetti's work on partial exchangeability, continuing with his approach to approximate exchangeability, and then his (surprising) approach to assigning informative priors in nonstandard situations. Recent progress on Markov chain Monte Carlo methods for drawing conclusions is supplemented by a review of work by Gerencsér and Ottolini on getting honest bounds for rates of convergence. The paper concludes with a speculative approach to combining c…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• The Mathematics of Mixing

  NSF · $450k · 2012–2016

• New Techniques and Analyses for Random Sampling

  NSF · $575k · 2020–2026

Frequent coauthors

• Laurent Saloff‐Coste

  Cornell University

  59 shared

• Susan Holmes

  Stanford University

  48 shared

• Sourav Chatterjee

  40 shared

• Laurent Miclo

  Institut de Mathématiques de Toulouse

  32 shared

• Kshitij Khare

  30 shared

• Ron Graham

  University of California, San Diego

  28 shared

• David A. Freedman

  24 shared

• Jason Fulman

  19 shared

Labs

• Persi Diaconis's LabPI

  Not provided

Education

• B.A., Mathematics

  Harvard University

  1969

• Ph.D., Statistics

  Stanford University

  1974

Awards & honors

• Stanford Honors Thesis Prizes - Symbolic Systems
• Glushko Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Research in Sy…
• Barwise Award for Distinguished Contributions to Symbolic Sy…
• Symbolic Systems Distinguished Teaching Award

Similar researchers at Stanford University

• Russell Poldrackh-155
• Vinod Menonh-127
• Russ B. Altmanh-119