Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
Absolutely the best instructor I've seen in UW. Super clear in explaining concepts and giving proofs.Rate My Professors ↗
Current instructor
Timo Seppalainen
What students say
Original student reviews · all captured dates
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
Timo is one of the best lecturers and instructors in the department.Rate My Professors ↗
Quality 5/5Difficulty 5/5
The best Prof ever. I wish he taught all courses.Rate My Professors ↗
Quality 5/5Difficulty 4/5
Professor Seppalaninen is a great professor who cares deeply for his students and makes difficult concepts easy for students to understand. He also is very accommodating, as he had several formulas for determining the course grade and went with whatever one gave you the highest grade. One of the best professors to take for such difficult materialRate My Professors ↗
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
Super professional instructor who explains why the mathematical results discussed in class are important, and how they fit into the greater context of measure theory and other areas of mathematics, but keeps the required material in the scope of the class and its prerequisites.Rate My Professors ↗
Quality 5/5Difficulty 4/5
Timo is a good guy and a great teacher. He makes complicated topics very accessible to students who have no analysis background. The homework can be very challenging and take a while, but you only get about 10 of them. The best thing is that the homework is way harder than the exams. So, if you really take time with the hw, you barely need to studyRate My Professors ↗
Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.
Classes with Timo Seppalainen
Covers discrete-time and continuous-time Markov chains, Poisson point processes, and renewal processes, with applications to queueing, branching, and models in science, engineering, and business.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Timo Seppalainen
Timo Seppalainen made complicated probability topics accessible, even for students without an analysis background. He explained why mathematical results were important and how they fit into broader contexts. Students found the homework challenging, noting it was harder than the exams, but valued the clarity of his lectures.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026MATH 990
Reading and Research
1–3 creditsReading and research in all areas of Mathematics.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
No recorded grade history
Theory of Probability II covers possible topics including martingales, weak convergence of measures, and an introduction to Brownian motion.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Recent recorded grades — Spring 2015: 3.42 GPA, 53.8% A/AB (n=13 letter grades); Spring 2019: 3.87 GPA, 92.6% A/AB (n=27 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.96 GPA, 96.4% A/AB (n=28 letter grades).
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2023–Spring 2026Recorded teaching history
Distinct courses recorded per term
Explore courses taught by this instructor →Browse recorded courses
| Term | Course | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Spring 2027 | ISYE/MATH/OTM/STAT 632 | Introduction to Stochastic Processes |
| Spring 2027 | MATH 990 | Reading and Research |
| Spring 2027 | MATH/STAT 734 | Theory of Probability II |
| Fall 2026 | ISYE/MATH/OTM/STAT 632 | Introduction to Stochastic Processes |
| Fall 2026 | MATH 790 | Masters Thesis |
Teaching history may be incomplete. Course pages contain course-specific feedback and citations.
Instructor identity & provenance
{
"instructor_uid": "instructor_0c76709959a18ffe5c653f42",
"source": "enrollment",
"source_instructor_id": "tseppalainen",
"identity_basis": "netid",
"identity_status": "source_identified",
"name": "Timo Seppalainen",
"email": "SEPPALAI@MATH.WISC.EDU",
"first_observed_at": "2026-09-07 15:55:43.033547+00:00",
"last_observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
"ratings": {
"review_count": 22,
"quality": 5,
"difficulty": 3.32,
"quality_count": 22,
"difficulty_count": 22,
"profile_id": "rmp:1006782",
"source_url": "https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/professor/1006782",
"match_basis": "exact_name",
"observed_at": "2026-10-14 18:26:29.093462+00:00",
"courses": {
"course_b533f0f6b5fef2c11c4fa06c": {
"review_count": 2,
"quality": 5,
"difficulty": 3,
"quality_count": 2,
"difficulty_count": 2
},
"course_c602622d732dbbc9aceeeddf": {
"review_count": 6,
"quality": 5,
"difficulty": 3.33,
"quality_count": 6,
"difficulty_count": 6
},
"course_dcdb624e3fb8cbaf9a557ab9": {
"review_count": 13,
"quality": 5,
"difficulty": 3.46,
"quality_count": 13,
"difficulty_count": 13
},
"course_364c50303ed83d1234b4ea51": {
"review_count": 1,
"quality": 5,
"difficulty": 2,
"quality_count": 1,
"difficulty_count": 1
}
},
"bayesian_quality": 4.361520752617366,
"prior_mean": 3.65919358049647,
"prior_weight": 20
},
"current": true,
"courses": [
{
"course_uid": "course_01a16b5311010cfe0f48754c",
"course_id": "MATH 990",
"title": "READING AND RESEARCH",
"credits_min": 1,
"credits_max": 3,
"gpa": null
},
{
"course_uid": "course_436b4b4087325a19ccd87bd6",
"course_id": "MATH/STAT 734",
"title": "THEORY OF PROBABILITY II",
"credits_min": 3,
"credits_max": 3,
"gpa": 3.704
},
{
"course_uid": "course_c602622d732dbbc9aceeeddf",
"course_id": "ISYE/MATH/OTM/STAT 632",
"title": "INTRODUCTION TO STOCHASTIC PROCESSES",
"credits_min": 3,
"credits_max": 3,
"gpa": 3.155
}
],
"revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
"instructor_url": "/instructors/TIMO_SEPPALAINEN"
}