Department of Mathematics , University of Georgia, Athens Georgia

Tom Brahana's History of Mathematics at UGA spans more than 150 years, from the beginning of the university in the early 19th century to the civil rights era of the 1960s. In the late 1970s the department withstood a misguided attempt by university administrators to reorganize the mathematical sciences and replace department head Jim Cantrell. Here's some documentation of this recent history.

My research interest is the topology of singularities, with applications to algebraic geometry and differential geometry. Since the early 1990s I have worked with Adam Parusiński (Université Côte d'Azur) on invariants of real algebraic varieties and semialgebraic sets. In spring 2004 I was a member of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, where I participated in the program Topological Aspects of Real Algebraic Geometry. In the fall of 2005 I visited the Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris, and I taught a course "Invariants and singularities of real algebraic varieties" as part of the Special Trimester on Real Geometry at the Centre Emille Borel. In June 2006 my 60th birthday conference was held at the University of Angers. In 2009 I became Professor Emeritus at UGA. In July 2016 I celebrated my 70th birthday at the University of São Paolo in São Carlos, Brazil.

Courses I've enjoyed teaching over the years include graduate topology, math for liberal arts majors, and geometry for future high school teachers.

I have been involved with the Center for Proficiency in Teaching Mathematics in the UGA Department of Mathematics Education. The CPTM was an NSF funded project at UGA and the University of Michigan. I participated in the Center's first summer institute in June 2003. In August 2005 and spring 2006 I organized several workshops in Athens and Atlanta by Tom Banchoff on his Multivariable Calculus Project.

For six years I was the director of the department's National Science Foundation VIGRE [Vertical InteGration of Research and Education] program (2001-2007). We were one of a handful of mathematics departments to be awarded a second VIGRE grant (2008-2015).

For more information, including a list of my research publications, see my vita. My recent papers can be downloaded from the math arXiv.