Renan spent his high-school years at the Israel Arts and Science Academy in Jerusalem, where he
took delight in programming, music, and freedom of action. During his army service he made the
mistake of reading the book One Two Three … Infinity by George Gamow, which really left him no choice but to study mathematics. He finished his undergraduate degree in mathematics and physics in the Technion’s Excellence Program, tossed a coin, and carried on for an MSc and PhD in mathematics at the Weizmann Institute, under the supervision of Ronen Eldan.

Renan’s research focuses on probability and Boolean functions. Within probability, he mostly tries to understand how to approximate Gibbs distributions, which are commonly found when describing interacting systems such as magnets or friendship networks. His work often entails following random walks around and seeing what can be learned from their trajectories. He has also worked on the origin of life, collective motion of bacterial swarms, and quantum information.

Renan enjoys what he does: Mathematics, with all its hard-set iffs and irrevocable deductions, always manages to surprise him. He tries not to take life too seriously, since it quite obviously doesn’t take him very seriously either.