News and events at Department of Mathematics
Job opportunities 2025
2024/10/01
The Department of Mathematics at the University of Virginia invites applications for the following positions (links to mathjobs ads):
2024 Blue Ridge Probability Day
Event date: 2024/10/04
The inaugural Blue Ridge Probability Day will occur on Friday, October 4, 2024, in Kerchof 111, from 1:00-5:00 PM. The speakers are
- Shalin Parekh (Maryland)
- Greta Panova (USC)
- Nicholas Cook (Duke)
Math Department Tea Time Resumes
2024/08/19
Math Department Tea Time will begin next Tuesday, August 27th!
Tea will be held every Tuesday and Thursday during the semester in Kerchof 314 (Math Lounge / Common Room), starting at 3:15 pm. Refreshments will be provided, so come upstairs and gather with the department!
UVA Math Proud of USA Swimmers
2024/07/29
The US Olympic swim team boasts six current or former UVa students, including the “fastest mathematician in the pool,” Kate Douglass. Douglass earned her bachelor’s degree in mathematical statistics from UVa in 2023 and is now a graduate student in Statistics; she has been working on research with mathematics professor Ken Ono. In turn, Professor Ono has been working with the UVa swim team, using mathematical tools to hone technique and boost speeds in the pool. He was featured in a recent article in the New York Times (subscription may be required).
GTA Teaching Awards
2024/06/27
We are pleased to recognize Louisa Liles and Valentina Zapata Castro for winning the 2023-24 Outstanding Mathematics Graduate Teaching Assistant Award. Congratulations!
Alan Reid - Virginia Mathematics Lectures - October 28-30, 2024
Event start date: 2024/10/28
Alan Reid (Rice University)
Finite shadows of infinite groups: What do they hide?
- Lecture 1: Monday, October 28, 2024, 5-6PM, Wilson 402 - Exploring infinite groups by finite quotients
- Lecture 2: Tuesday, October 29, 2024, 5-6PM, Wilson 402 - What is profinite rigidity?
- Lecture 3: Wednesday, October 30, 2024, 5-6PM, Wilson 402 - Grothendieck’s Problem and detecting finitely generated versus finitely presented
Thomas Koberda Receives Shannon Mid-Career Fellowship
2024/06/07
Thomas Koberda has been awarded a Shannon Mid-Career Fellowship by the Provost’s office, starting fall 2024. Congratulations!
More information and a list of 2023 Fellows is here
2024 Mathematics Final Exercises Ceremony
Event date: 2024/05/18
Final Exercises for the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences will take place on Saturday, May 18, 2024 at 9:00 a.m. on the Lawn.
The ceremony times and locations for the Mathematics Department Diploma Ceremony are listed below (11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.):
Fair Weather: Pavilion I, Lower Garden
Inclement or Severe Weather: Warner Hall, Room 209
DMP thesis defense: Declan Stacy
Event date: 2024/04/30
Declan Stacy will defend the DMP thesis on Monday, April 30. The title is
“Stochastic extinction, An average Lyapunov function approach”.
- Date: Monday, April 30
- Time: 1:00 pm EST
- Place: Kerchof 111
Everyone is invited to attend.
Thesis defense: Yuan Zhang
Event date: 2023/04/24
Yuan Zhang will defend the Ph.D. thesis on Wednesday, April 24. The title is
“Root group data (RGD) systems of affine type for significant subgroups of isotropic reductive groups over \(k[t,1/t]\)”.
The defense will be held at Kerchof 111 at 3:00 pm.
Yuan and I hope that many of you will be able to attend.
Master thesis defense: Mason Barnes
Event date: 2024/04/22
Mason Barnes will be defending the Master thesis on Monday, April 22. The title is
“Kashaev Conjecture Solved for the Five Punctured Spheres”.
- Date: Monday, April 22
- Time: 10:00 am
- Location: Kerchof 111
Mason will demonstrate his solution to the Kashaev conjecture for type-preserving representations of the five punctured sphere in PSL(2,R).
Everyone is invited to attend.
Thesis defense: Tanner Carawan
Event date: 2023/04/19
Tanner Carawan will defend the Ph.D. thesis on Friday, April 19. The title is
“2-Segal maps associated to a category with cofibrations”.
The defense will be held at Kerchof 317 at 3:00 pm.
Everyone is invited to attend.
Catherine Cossaboom is Awarded Goldwater Scholarship
2024/04/17
Catherine Cossaboom, a third-year math (and cognitive science) major, has been awarded a prestigious Goldwater Scholarship, one of only two recipients this year at UVa and among 508 nationwide. Here is the UVA Today article. Congratulations, Catherine!
Thesis defense: Donnelly Phillips
Event date: 2023/04/15
Donnelly Phillips will defend the Ph.D. thesis on Monday, April 15. The title is
“The Hypoelliptic Heat Kernel on Infinite-Dimensional Lie Groups: Heisenberg-Like Quasi-Invariance and the Taylor Isomorphism”.
The defense will be held at Kerchof 128 at 12:00 pm.
Everyone is invited to attend.
Thesis defense: Shunyu Wan
Event date: 2023/04/09
Shunyu Wan will defend the Ph.D. thesis on Tuesday, April 9. The title is
“Naturality of the Legendrian LOSS invariant under positive contact surgery”.
The defense will be held at Kerchof Hall 111 at 3:15 pm.
Everyone is invited to attend.
Darien Farnham Wins NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
2024/04/08
Congratulations to Darien Farnham, who has won an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship!
Thesis defense: Alec Traaseth
Event date: 2023/04/08
Alec Traaseth will defend the Ph.D. thesis on Monday, April 8. The title is
“Combination Theorems for Convergence Groups”.
The defense will be held at Kerchof 111 at 10:00 am.
Everyone is invited to attend.
Valia Gazaki Wins 2024 Alumni Board of Trustees Teaching Award
2024/04/02
Valia Gazaki was awarded the 2024 Alumni Board of Trustees Teaching Award, selected from nominees across the University.
David Chasteen-Boyd wins an All-University Graduate Teaching Award
2024/04/01
We are happy to announce that David Chasteen-Boyd, a graduate student, is one of this year’s All-University Graduate Teaching Award winners. This award honors students from all disciplines who have demonstrated exceptional achievement in undergraduate instruction and includes a $500 prize.
John Imbrie's Work Featured in Quanta Magazine
2024/03/21
John Imbrie’s work on many-body localization in quantum physics was featured prominently in a recent article in Quanta magazine.
Thesis defense: Hasan Saad
Event date: 2024/03/25
Hasan Saad will defend the Ph.D. thesis on Monday, March 25. The title is
“On the Distributions of Point Counts on Hypergeometric Varieties”.
The defense will be held at Kerchof Hall 111 from 1:00 - 2:00 pm.
Everyone is invited to attend.
UVA Math PhD Weinan Zhang Wins 2023 ICCM Best Thesis Gold Prize
2024/03/20
2023 UVA math PhD Weinan Zhang, now a postdoc at the University of Hong Kong, will be awarded a Gold Prize for the 2023 ICCM Best Thesis Award, established by S.-T. Yau. The award, which comes with a prize of 50,000 RMB, recognizes the best PhD thesis in mathematics by a student of Chinese descent.
Ken Ono elected to the Indian Academy of Sciences
2024/03/20
Ken Ono has been elected an Honorary Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences starting 2024.