On 17 November 2025, the Dean of the Faculty of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Mathematics at Paderborn University, Prof. Dr Jürgen Klüners, welcomed guests to the inaugural lecture by Prof. Dr Karin Binder (Didactics of Mathematics) and Junior Prof. Dr Jonas Jalowy (Probability Theory). In their lectures, both academics presented current issues and research approaches from their respective departments and gave an exciting insight into their future work at Paderborn University.
The first lecture was given by Prof Dr Karin Binder under the title "Promoting stochastic thinking: The benefits of visualisations in situations with two dichotomous features and a simulation-based introduction of hypothesis tests".
Misunderstandings in dealing with conditional probabilities occur frequently in the media, medicine and politics - for example in statements such as: "Two thirds of women suffering from breast cancer are over 70 years old." In her lecture, Prof. Binder presented empirical findings on which visualisations and strategies make it easier to deal with such situations and how they can help to avoid typical errors. In this context, Karin Binder also presented results from the DFG project TrainBayes, in which students from medicine (n = 260) and law (n = 255) were trained in dealing with conditional probabilities and examined in a pre-post follow-up test design. The effectiveness of a double tree training programme and a unit square training programme was tested in comparison to two control training programmes and a waiting control group. The focus was on the effectiveness of the trainings, the influence of different prior knowledge facets and the question of how well the students succeed in implementing the trainings in each case. She also showed how hypothesis tests can be introduced on a simulation basis to strengthen conceptual understanding and prevent common misconceptions. She explained the simulation-based introduction of hypothesis tests, such as the t-test for comparing second mean values using the didactic software CODAP. Here, for example, the question of what it means (or does not mean) when the school performance of children from two countries differs "significantly" was examined.
Prof Dr Karin Binder has been Professor (W3) of Mathematics Education at Paderborn University since April 2025. After completing her first state examination and her diploma in physics at the University of Regensburg, she completed her doctorate in didactics of science there in 2018 and was awarded the Bavarian Culture Prize for her doctoral dissertation. Her subsequent positions took her to Regensburg, Paderborn and Munich as a postdoc and deputy professor before she was appointed W2 professor at LMU Munich in 2022. In her research, she focuses on the didactics of stochastics, the professional knowledge of teachers and the promotion of data literacy among various target groups - from schoolchildren to doctors and journalists. Prof Binder's lecture was held in German.
Afterwards, Jonas Jalowy gave an insight into the fundamentals and news developments in his field of research with his lecture "Evolution of zeros of (random) polynomials under the heat flow" .
While the zeros of quadratic polynomials can still be easily determined, the analysis of polynomials of high degree becomes a mathematical challenge. Jun.-Prof.Dr. Jalowy showed how the distribution of zeros of such polynomials evolves when they are subjected to the holomorphic heat flow: In the moving images, the audience repeatedly saw how the zeros moved from various original positions within the complex plane towards the real axis. In the case of random "Weyl polynomials", for example, the distribution of the zeros changes from the circular law via the elliptic law to the Wigner semicircle distribution, known from the world of random matrices. Such results belong to a currently very active branch of research that is fundamentally concerned with the dynamics of zeros under differential operators. For Jonas Jalowy, the research is particularly motivated by surprising points of connection with concepts from optimal transport, the theory of point processes, free probability theory and harmonic analysis.
Jun.-Prof.Dr. Jonas Jalowy studied mathematics at Bielefeld University and completed his doctorate there in 2020 under Prof. Friedrich Götze. After several postdoctoral positions at the University of Münster - including activities in the DFG Priority Programme SPP 2265 - he moved to Paderborn University in 2025. His research is in the field of probability theory with links to analysis and mathematical physics.
The faculty members warmly welcomed both to their ranks over drinks afterwards.
