Zhenyuan Zhang

zzy.jpg

Hi! I am a fifth-year Ph.D. student in Mathematics at Stanford University, advised by Prof. Jose H. Blanchet. In the academic year 2025–2026, my research is generously supported by a Jump Trading Fellowship.

I am broadly interested in probability theory and its applications. My recent interest lies in branching particle systems (or more general log-correlated fields) and their applications in polymer physics and mathematical biology. I also work on optimal transport and applications to statistics, economics, and operations research. Other topics I have been actively working on include decision trees and Gaussian processes.

Before, I received my bachelor’s degree in Pure Mathematics from University of Waterloo, where I was fortunate to work with Profs. Alexander Schied, Yi Shen, and Ruodu Wang.

Email: zzy [at] stanford [dot] edu. Here is my Google scholar page.

Job Market I’m going on the academic job market in 2025–2026.


Publications

  1. Boundedness of discounted branching random walks via generic chaining
    Zhenyuan Zhang
    arXiv preprint, 2026
    arXiv Branching particle systems
  2. Large deviations of first passage times of branching random walks in ℝd: asymptotics and algorithms
    Jose Blanchet, Wei Cai, Shaswat Mohanty, and Zhenyuan Zhang
    arXiv preprint, 2025
    arXiv Branching particle systems
  3. Stabilizing the splits through minimax decision trees
    Zhenyuan Zhang and Hengrui Luo
    arXiv preprint, 2025
    arXiv Statistics theory
  4. Quadratic-form optimal transport
    Ruodu Wang and Zhenyuan Zhang
    Mathematical Programming, to appear, 2026
    arXiv Optimal transport
  5. Sample path properties of the fractional Wiener–Weierstrass bridge
    Alexander Schied and Zhenyuan Zhang
    Bernoulli, to appear, 2026
    arXiv Stochastic processes
  6. Tightness analysis of first passage times of d-dimensional branching random walk
    Jose Blanchet and Zhenyuan Zhang
    arXiv preprint, 2024
    arXiv Branching particle systems
  7. On the first passage times of branching random walks in ℝd
    Jose Blanchet, Wei Cai, Shaswat Mohanty, and Zhenyuan Zhang
    The Annals of Applied Probability, to appear, 2026
    arXiv Branching particle systems
  8. Empirical martingale projections via the adapted Wasserstein distance
    Jose Blanchet, Johannes Wiesel, Erica Zhang, and Zhenyuan Zhang
    The Annals of Applied Probability, 2026
    arXiv Optimal transport
  9. Universality and phase transitions in low moments of secular coefficients of critical holomorphic multiplicative chaos
    Haotian Gu and Zhenyuan Zhang
    Probability Theory and Related Fields, 2026
    arXiv Branching particle systems
  10. Modeling shortest paths in polymeric networks using spatial branching processes
    Zhenyuan Zhang, Shaswat Mohanty, Jose Blanchet, and Wei Cai
    Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 2024
    arXiv Branching particle systems
  11. On the existence of powerful p-values and e-values for composite hypotheses
    Zhenyuan Zhang, Aaditya Ramdas, and Ruodu Wang
    The Annals of Statistics, 2024
    arXiv Statistics theory
  12. Weierstrass bridges
    Alexander Schied and Zhenyuan Zhang
    Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, 2024
    arXiv Stochastic processes
  13. Composite sorting
    Job Boerma, Aleh Tsyvinski, Ruodu Wang, and Zhenyuan Zhang
    arXiv preprint, 2023
    arXiv Optimal transport
  14. Martingale transports and Monge maps
    Marcel Nutz, Ruodu Wang, and Zhenyuan Zhang
    The Annals of Applied Probability, 2024
    arXiv Optimal transport
  15. Consensus on dynamic stochastic block models: fast convergence and phase transitions
    Haoyu Wang, Jiaheng Wei, and Zhenyuan Zhang
    arXiv preprint, 2022
    arXiv Probability models
  16. Simultaneous optimal transport
    Ruodu Wang and Zhenyuan Zhang
    Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, 2025
    arXiv Optimal transport
  17. A limit theorem for Bernoulli convolutions and the Φ-variation of functions in the Takagi class
    Xiyue Han, Alexander Schied, and Zhenyuan Zhang
    Journal of Theoretical Probability, 2022
    arXiv Roughness analysis
  18. A probabilistic approach to the Φ-variation of classical fractal functions with critical roughness
    Xiyue Han, Alexander Schied, and Zhenyuan Zhang
    Statistics & Probability Letters, 2021
    arXiv Roughness analysis
  19. On the pth variation of a class of fractal functions
    Alexander Schied and Zhenyuan Zhang
    Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society, 2020
    arXiv Roughness analysis
  20. On discrete-time self-similar processes with stationary increments
    Yi Shen and Zhenyuan Zhang
    Electronic Journal of Probability, 2021
    arXiv Stochastic processes