Recorded 25 February 2025. Ramon van Handel of Princeton University presents "Strong convergence I - Minicourse, Pt. 1 of 2" at IPAM's Free Entropy Theory and Random Matrices Workshop. Abstract: The notion of strong convergence of random matrices has found striking applications in recent years to important problems in operator algebras, geometry, and random graphs. The aim of this mini-course is to briefly introduce this circle of ideas, and to survey recent developments and some open problems in this area. Learn more online at: https://www.ipam.ucla.edu/programs/workshops/free-entropy-theory-and-random-matrices/