Virtual Spring 2021 Office Hours

This iteration of WAGS will include a chance for participants to attend office hours of established mathematicians, although the conversation does not have to be purely mathematical. The office hour hosts have provided brief introductions below.

Christine Berkesch (University of Minnesota)

Christine Berkesch works in commutative algebra and algebraic geometry, often with combinatorial and homological leanings. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota. Along with mathematics and career paths, she is happy to discuss pandemic survival tactics, cooking, puppies, LEGO, taekwondo, and other topics of interest to her six year old son.

Daniel Erman (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

I work at the boundary of commutative algebra and algebraic geometry, and my interests include homological techniques like syzygies, derived categories, and more. I’m a professor at Wisconsin where, in addition to my research and mentoring, I work on the logistics of large-scale courses like calculus. On a more personal note: my wife and I had our first kid when we were both in grad school, and she’s always worked high powered jobs in the business world, so I could also talk about my experiences balancing careers and parenting.

Laure Flapan (Michigan State University)

I work primarily on Hodge theory and algebraic cycles. I’m currently an NSF postdoc at Michigan State (before this I was a postdoc at Northeastern, MSRI, and MIT) and will be starting as an assistant professor at Michigan State next academic year. Outside of math, I used to have hobbies but now have children (ages 3 and almost 1), who I’m happy to discuss or not discuss as people prefer.

Angela Gibney (Rutgers)

I work on the moduli space of curves, and lately have been learning about vector bundles on the moduli space of curves defined by representations of vertex algebras. I am a professor in the math department at Rutgers, New Brunswick. And non-research: I run the AMS Notices Early Career section and I have two teenage daughters who are seriously into the performing arts (singing and dancing).

Dagan Karp (Harvey Mudd College)

I'm interested in Gromov-Witten theory, toric and tropical geometry, and generally combinatorial techniques in algebraic geometry with an emphasis on moduli spaces and enumerative geometry. I'm also interested in critical education theory in postsecondary mathematics, and pursuing social justice in and through mathematics. I just submitted my packet for promotion to full professor at Harvey Mudd College (fingers crossed). Non-math -- my partner is an art historian and designer, we have 3.5 cats, and I started skateboarding in 1987 and haven't quite stopped yet :-)

Álvaro Lozano-Robledo (University of Connecticut)

As an introduction, I'm an arithmetic geometer, and I'm particularly interested in Galois representations attached to abelian varieties. I'm a professor of Mathematics at UConn, where I've worked since 2008, after a visiting position at Colby College and a postdoc at Cornell. I'm a father of two (8 and 10yo) so I'm also happy to talk about the balance of math and family life. I have also written several posts about my experience advising students, and applying for jobs, in my blog, that may be of interest: https://afieldguidetomath.wordpress.com/