Fan Yang
Assistant Professor of Mathematics
Department of Mathematics
Wake Forest University
I work in ergodic theory and smooth dynamical systems, with connections to probability, stochastic processes, and geometry.
About me
I obtained my Ph.D. from the University of Southern California under the guidance of Nicolai Haydn in 2015. I had postdoc positions at IMPA / UFRJ in Brazil, the University of Oklahoma, and Michigan State University, USA.
Dynamics at Wake Forest
Annual Minicourse and Workshop on Smooth Dynamical Systems at Wake Forest University
An annual minicourse and workshop on smooth dynamical systems and related topics.
Research interests
Expanding foliations
Transverse invariant measures, unique ergodicity, and equidistribution.
Smooth ergodic theory
Flows with singularities.
Partially hyperbolic systems
Equilibrium measures, large deviations, and decay of correlations.
Limit theorems
Escape rates, hitting-time statistics, extreme-value distributions, central limit theorems, and related probabilistic phenomena.
Entropy theory
Relations with topological structures.
My students
Ph.D.
Connor Davis, University of Oklahoma, 2017–2020
(co-advised with Alexander Grigo)
Dissertation: Escape Rate from a Probabilistic Perspective.
Master’s
Gongran Yao, Wake Forest University, 2023–2025
Thesis: An improved Climenhaga-Thompson criterion for locally maximal sets.
Undergraduate
Current
- Daisy Yu, Wake Forest University, 2025–2027 (expected)
- Jimmy Ren, Wake Forest University, 2026–2027 (expected)
- Matthew Thompson, Wake Forest University, 2026–2027 (expected)
- William Wang, Wake Forest University, 2025–2027 (expected)
Past
- Minxing Liu, Wake Forest University, 2025–2026