Alexander M. Iksanov
Fellow 2024/2025
Mathematics
Faculty of Computer Science and Cybernetics, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv
Volkswagen Stiftung
iksan@univ.kiev.ua
Bio
Born in 1972 in Kyiv, Alexander Iksanov graduated with honors in 1995, earning a specialist degree in applied mathematics. In 1998, he became a teaching assistant at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (TSNUK) and defended his PhD in 2000. By 2003, he attained the rank of Associate Professor, followed by habilitation in Physics and Mathematics in 2007. He was promoted to Full Professor in 2011 and has served as Head of the Operations Research Department since 2014.
From 2014 to 2015, he taught part-time at the National Technical University of Ukraine "Kiev Politechnic Institute" and again at Wroclaw University in Poland in 2016-2017. He was also a visiting professor at Xidian University, China, in 2017 and 2018, and invited speaker at the International Weeks of Xidian University in 2019 and 2021.
An Associate Editor of the journals Theory of Stochastic Processes (2014–2022) and Theory of Probability and Mathematical Statistics (2022–present), he has secured multiple fellowships and research grants from universities worldwide, including Austria, China, Germany, and the UK. He received the Taras Shevchenko Prize of TSNUK in 2014 and the “For Excellence in Education” Breastplate from the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine in 2020.
In 2022, he was awarded a grant from UC Berkeley Economics/Haas and received the Ito Prize in 2023 for his contributions to stochastic processes research.
Archaeology Meets Mathematics: a Probabilistic Model for Demographic Dynamics and Wealth Inequality of Early Agriculturalists
A. Iksanov, a mathematician, and A. Diachenko, an archaeologist, got acquainted when both have become VUIAS fellows. Realizing the idea of interdisciplinarity, they initiated a project aimed at constructing a reasonable mathematical model for the demographic and social dynamics of early agriculturalists. The model is based on an analysis of the areas of dwellings. Of necessity, their programme should consist of at least two steps:
- 1) to construct a model and verify it through the analysis of archaeological data;
- 2) to make a statistical inference concerning some parameters of the model.
Testing the model presumes its application to the sampled Cucuteni-Trypillia sites, ca. 5000-3000/2950 BCE. The model aims at explaining various datasets from different spatio-temporal units. This may be achieved by tuning the model parameters appropriately.
Outcomes of the initial phase of the project has been reported at VUIAS seminar on March 14, 2025.