Our Applied Probability Section is delighted to announce Léonie Papon as the winner of the 2026 RSS PhD prize in Applied Probability.
Léonie’s thesis, 'Near-critical interfaces and massive Schramm-Loewner evolutions' concerns interfaces in planar models of statistical mechanics near criticality. The contributions in her thesis include proving that the massive SLE with parameter 4 arises as the scaling limit of a near-critical lattice model, establishing a relationship between massive SLE(4) and a massive planar Gaussian free field, and a definitive description of scaling limits of interfaces in Ising models perturbed away from criticality by an external magnetic field. Work appearing in her thesis has already been accepted into Annales de l'Institut Henri Poincaré, and Léonie will be invited to organise a meeting of our Applied Probability Section.
The RSS PhD competition in Applied Probability is awarded biennially to PhDs completed at a UK university. The judging panel noted that the standard of applications was particularly high.