I am a Professor in the Department of Statistics and Operations Research at UNC Chapel Hill. I do research in Applied Probability, in particular, I work on problems involving complex networks and heavy-tailed phenomena. My current work is focused on the analysis of complex networks and processes that run on them. In particular, I am interested in scale-free random graphs such as those used to model the web and other social networks. Some of my ongoing projects include the study of Google’s PageRank algorithm on preferential attachment graphs and on the directed stochastic block model, as well as the description of local weak-limits for preferential attachment graphs and the evolution of opinions in the presence of cognitive biases.

You can find a description of some of my ongoing projects here.

I was born in Mexico City, and lived there until 2001, when I came to the United States to start my doctoral studies. My bachelor’s degree is in Applied Mathematics from the “Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM)”, and I hold a master’s degree in Statistics from Stanford University. I obtained my PhD from the Department of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University, where I worked on problems related to the single-server queue with heavy-tailed processing times. From 2006 to 2014 I was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at Columbia University, and an Associate Professor from 2014 to 2016. More recently, I was a Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at UC Berkeley. I came to UNC Chapel Hill in 2018.

I am also the chair of the Data Science Minor steering committee. For more information visit the Data Science Minor website.

Contact Information:

Department of Statistics and Operations Research
UNC Chapel Hill
335 Hanes Hall
Chapel Hill, NC 27599
Email: molvera@email.unc.edu