News and events at Department of Mathematics
Lauren Williams - Virginia Mathematics Lectures - November 10-11, 2026
Event start date: 2026/11/10
Lauren Williams (Harvard University)
- Lecture 1 - First Proof: Mathematicians putting AI to the test: Tuesday, November 10, 2026 | TBA | TBA
- Lecture 2 - Macdonald polynomials and probability: Wednesday, November 11, 2026 | TBA | TBA
Congratulations to Our 2026 Math Graduates!
Event date: 2026/05/16
The Mathematics Department celebrated its 2025–2026 graduates at the Diploma Ceremony on Saturday, May 16, 2026, held at the Rotunda’s north steps. Congratulations to all our new bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral graduates — we wish you the very best in your next chapter!
Master thesis defense: Sam Lichtman
Event date: 2026/04/29
Sam Lichtman will defend the Master thesis on Wednesday, April 29. The title is
“Time zero behavior of stochastic diffusions with multiplicative noise”.
- Date: Wednesday, April 29
- Time: 10:00 am
- Location: Kerchof 111
Everyone is invited to attend.
Mathematicians Outperform AI in Solving a Combinatorics Problem
2026/04/27
Mathematics professor Leonid Petrov , with collaborators David Anderson (Ohio State University) and Greta Panova (University of Southern California), has resolved a 10-year-old problem in algebraic combinatorics that AI-driven approaches had failed to crack. Despite recent excitement about AI as a tool for mathematical discovery, no automated system had been able to locate a counterexample to the long-standing Merzon-Smirnov conjecture on Schubert polynomials. Petrov, Anderson, and Panova disproved the conjecture by combining sharper computational methods with new theoretical insight, finding the first counterexample at n = 17, just beyond the reach of earlier exhaustive searches.
The preprint is on the arXiv: Computation and sampling for Schubert specializations. A new UVA Arts & Sciences article highlights the result and its place in the broader conversation about AI in mathematics.
Thesis defense: Alejandro De Las Penas Castano
Event date: 2026/04/24
Alejandro De Las Penas Castano will defend the Ph.D. thesis on Friday, April 24. The title is
“Zero-cycles on Products of Elliptic curves with supersingular reduction”.
The defense will be held at Kerchof 111 at 3:30 pm.
Zoom link: https://virginia.zoom.us/j/92670669350?pwd=hahwy17xPUthUrqp4PP7K3h5seBcK2.1
Meeting ID: 926 7066 9350
Passcode: 551925
Everyone is invited to attend.
DMP thesis defense: Luke Moyar
Event date: 2026/04/23
Luke Moyar will defend the DMP thesis on Thursday, April 23. The title is
“Khovanov homology and the skein lasagna module”.
The defense will be held at Kerchof 111 from 3:00 pm until 4:00 pm.
Everyone is invited to attend.
DMP thesis defense: Anthony Doll
Event date: 2026/04/24
Anthony Doll will defend the DMP thesis on Friday, April 24. The title is
“Classical Computational Methods in Homotopy Theory”.
The defense will be held at Kerchof 317 from 1:00 pm until 2:00 pm, and will also be broadcast via Zoom (Meeting ID: 946 8945 7768, Passcode: 455863).
Everyone is invited to attend.
DMP thesis defense: John Layne
Event date: 2026/04/23
John Layne will defend the DMP thesis on Thursday, April 23. The title is
“Linear Patterns in Subsets of the Integers via Ergodic Theory, Hypergraph Methods, and Higher-Order Fourier Analysis”.
The defense will be held at Kerchof 111 from 9:00 am until 10:00 am.
Zoom link: https://virginia.zoom.us/my/pclhumphries
Everyone is invited to attend.
AWM Colloquium: Marianne Korten (Kansas State University)
Event date: 2026/04/21
“What Are Free Boundary Problems?”
On Tuesday, April 21, 2026, we are excited to host an AWM Colloquium by Professor Marianne Korten from Kansas State University, at 5:00 PM in Kerchof 111.
Thesis defense: Mikhail Tikhonov
Event date: 2026/04/17
Mikhail Tikhonov will defend the Ph.D. thesis on Friday, April 17. The title is
“Etudes in Integrable Probability”.
The defense will be held at Kerchof 317 at 2:00 pm.
Zoom link: https://virginia.zoom.us/j/92756559638?pwd=Lg9knrt9MzxhRdpVA3HAZJzqCf9tUo.1
Everyone is invited to attend.
Thesis defense: Yangxiao Luo
Event date: 2026/04/14
Yangxiao Luo will defend the Ph.D. thesis on Tuesday, April 14. The title is
“Thompson’s group, braid groups and link homology”.
The defense will be held at New Cabell 411 at 2:15 pm.
Zoom link: https://virginia.zoom.us/j/98531468031?pwd=GJzuddDLIStYV9TqcH9hnoOG68uEcD.1
Everyone is invited to attend.
2026 Mathematics Diploma Ceremony
Event date: 2026/05/16
May 2026 Mathematics Diploma Ceremony
Saturday | May 16th | 2:30 – 4:00 P.M.
The Rotunda, North Steps | 1826 University Avenue | Charlottesville, VA 22904
In the case of inclement or severe weather, the ceremony will be held at Warner Hall at the same time. Check the Weather Plans site for updates.
- Fair-Weather Location: The Rotunda, North Steps
- Inclement-Weather Location: Warner Hall
- Department Contact: Malvika Rajagopal: geg7jw@virginia.edu
Please visit the Office of Major Events for the complete schedule of events for finals weekend, including the Lawn Ceremony.
Thesis defense: Michael Wills
Event date: 2026/04/10
Michael Wills will defend the Ph.D. thesis on Friday, April 10. The title is
“Local-to-global Principles for zero-cycles on products of CM elliptic curves”.
The defense will be held at Kerchof 111 at 3:30 pm.
Zoom link: https://virginia.zoom.us/j/94002919490?pwd=a2FRksdl3FvTaXP8wS6wlmsYGBWa74.1
Everyone is invited to attend.
Petch Chueluecha and Max Sanchez Garza Receive Outstanding Mathematics GTA Awards
2026/04/09
Congratulations to Petch Chueluecha and Max Sanchez Garza on receiving the Outstanding Mathematics Graduate Teaching Assistant Award! This department award recognizes graduate teaching assistants for their exceptional dedication to teaching and their positive impact on students.
Thesis defense: Eleftherios Chatzitheodoridis
Event date: 2026/04/06
Eleftherios Chatzitheodoridis will defend the Ph.D. thesis on Monday, April 6. The title is
“Models for rational (∞,1)-categories”.
The defense will be held at Kerchof 111 at 12:30 pm.
Everyone is invited to attend.
Applied Mathematics Colloquium, April 9: Karen Kafadar (UVA Statistics)
Event date: 2026/04/09
“Statistical Modeling: Two real-world examples”
On Thursday, April 9, 2026, the Applied Mathematics Colloquium presents Commonwealth Professor Karen Kafadar from the Department of Statistics at the University of Virginia. The talk is at 3:45 PM in Ridley Hall, Room G008, with a pre-talk coffee break from 3:00 to 3:30 PM in Kerchof Hall 314.
Mikhail Tikhonov Receives All-University Graduate Teaching Award
2026/04/02
Congratulations to Mikhail Tikhonov on being awarded an All-University Graduate Teaching Award! This university-wide award recognizes outstanding graduate teaching assistants across all schools at the University of Virginia.
Max Sanchez Garza named Jefferson Fellow
2026/03/18
Congratulations to Maximiliano Sanchez Garza on being named a Jefferson Fellow!
16th Southeastern Lie Theory Workshop — ICM 2026 Satellite Conference
Event start date: 2026/07/17
The 16th Southeastern Lie Theory Workshop, an ICM 2026 Satellite Conference, will be held at University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA from July 17–21, 2026. The workshop is funded by the NSF and the Institute of Mathematical Sciences at UVA. Registration is free and open.
Conference website with details
Organizers: Pramod Achar (LSU), Kailash Misra (NCSU), Daniel Nakano (UGA), You Qi (UVA)
Applied Mathematics Colloquium, March 12: Jose Perea (Northeastern University)
Event date: 2026/03/12
“Topological Methods for the Analysis of Data”
On Thursday, March 12, 2026, the Applied Mathematics Colloquium presents Professor Jose Perea from the Department of Mathematics and Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University. The talk is at 3:45 PM in Ridley Hall, Room G008, with a pre-talk coffee break from 3:00 to 3:30 PM in Kerchof Hall 314.
Rich Schwartz - Virginia Mathematics Lectures - March 23-25, 2026
Event start date: 2026/03/23
Rich Schwartz (Brown University)
- Lecture 1 - The Optimal Paper Moebius Band: Monday, March 23, 2026 | 5-6pm | Wilson 402
- Lecture 2 - The Most Efficient Origami Tori: Tuesday, March 24, 2026 | 5-6pm | Wilson 402
- Lecture 3 - Universality and Collapsibility in Vertex-Minimal Origami Tori: Wednesday, March 25, 2026 | 5-6pm | Nau 101
2026 Blue Ridge Probability Day
Event date: 2026/03/13
The second Blue Ridge Probability Day will occur on Friday, March 13, 2026 in Kerchof 111. The speakers are
- Yu Gu (University of Maryland)
- Eva Loeser (UNC Chapel Hill)
- Mark Meckes (Case Western Reserve University)
- David P. Herzog (Iowa State University)
UVA Math at the JMM Graduate School Fair
Event date: 2026/01/06
The JMM 2026 Graduate School Fair on January 6, 2026 in Washington, D.C. was a great success! We talked to at least a hundred students, spreading the word about the PhD program in Mathematics at the University of Virginia.
Huanchen Bao Receives Multiple ICCM Awards
2026/01/06
UVA Mathematics PhD alumnus Huanchen Bao has received three prestigious awards at the International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians (ICCM 2025), held in Shanghai, including the ICCM Best Paper Silver Award for the paper “Canonical bases arising from quantum symmetric pairs of Kac-Moody type” (Compos. Math. 157, 2021), joint with Weiqiang Wang .
Bao also received the ICCM Silver Medal of Mathematics and the ICCM Best Paper Gold Award (joint with Xuhua He).
Huanchen Bao is currently an Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore.