Padmini Veerapen

Welcome! 

I'm an Assistant Professor at Indiana University Northwest and I live in South Chicago. I'm co-organizing a conference in honor of Michaela Vancliff in May 2027. The conference website will be online soon. 

Before that, I was a Professor of Mathematics at Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville, TN (~1 hour from Nashville). I was in the greater Nashville area from 2013-2025 where I taught a variety of classes in calculus, algebra, linear algebra, & geometry. Additionally, I've supervised four Masters' theses (Leah Frauendienst, Jessica P. Cain, Jacob Copeland, & Meredith P. Hall). My research interests are in the general area of noncommutative algebra. Here is an essay about me written by a Columbus (Ohio) middle-schooler. It won an honorable mention for the 2021 AWM essay competition (2021 May-June AWM Newsletter).

I hail from a small tropical island in the Indian Ocean, Mauritius which is more than 10 000 miles away in air travel distance from North America. I went to graduate school in Arlington, TX where I learnt a lot of math from Michaela Vancliff. I have a lot of math to learn! I get a lot of enjoyment doing so with a variety of people in the noncommutative algebra world, e.g., Xingting Wang, Hongdi Huang, Jason Gaddis, Daniele Rosso & Yasmeen Baki, etc.

When not doing math, I spend time with my hubby, daughter, & my awesome friends. I also find joy in working out, swimming, riding my bike on the Chicago lakefront trail & baking! When I gaze at Lake Michigan, I often have the same feeling that I had staring at the Indian Ocean in my childhood days. Cheesy, I admit, but still true!