Dr. Marcus Michelen

Assistant Professor

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Biography

Marcus Michelen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Northwestern University. He previously held a position as an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago, from 2021 to 2025, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the same institution from 2019 to 2021. He received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2019, where he was advised by Robin Pemantle. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Engineering at The Cooper Union in 2014, majoring in General Engineering and minoring in Mathematics. His research interests focus on probability combinatorics with recent work concentrated on random polynomials, random matrices, and sphere packing or Gibbs point processes. His work is supported by the NSF CAREER grant and has been featured in Quanta Magazine, including video and text formats. Moreover, he has contributed layman descriptions of his research to La Recherche, which includes a translation into French.

Research Interests

Experience

Assistant Professor

2021-08-01 — Present

Northwestern University • Evanston, IL

Teaching and research in the Department of Mathematics, focusing on probability combinatorics.

Assistant Professor

2021-01-01 — 2025-01-01

University of Illinois, Chicago • Chicago, IL

Instruction and research in the Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science.

Postdoctoral Researcher

2019-01-01 — 2021-01-01

University of Illinois, Chicago • Chicago, IL

Conducting research in probability combinatorics and mentoring graduate students.

Requirements for Northwestern University

Doctorate Program
Requirements
GPA Requirement
Required:3
TOEFL
Total
Required:90
IELTS
Overall
Required:7
Prerequisites
U.S. Bachelor's degree or equivalent
Application Checklist
  • Online application
  • Transcripts
  • Letters of recommendation
  • Statement of purpose
  • Resume/CV
  • TOEFL/IELTS scores (if applicable)
Specialization Notes

Standard PhD requirements for TGS departments including Chemistry, Physics, and Sociology.