Our group

Above: Heron Island Research Retreat (More photos from this trip)

Current students

Lucas Sobelev (Honours) - The Weil Conjectures and \ell-adic cohomology.

UQ Faculty I closely collaborate with 

Ramiro Lafuente

Jorgen Rasmussen

Ole Warnaar 

Previous Postdocs

Samuel Jeralds - Next position: lecturer at the University of Sydney 

Matthew Spong - Next position: postdoc at University of Bochum in Jan 2022

Valentin Buciumas - Next position postdoc at  University of Amsterdam

Previous Students at the University of Queensland

Ryan Braiden (Honours) - The K(pi, 1) Conjecture 

Harrison Bohl  - Honours (Associate Supervision) - Sieve Methods and the Enumeration of I-graphs - Next position: Biarri Industry

Pantea Konn - Honours (Associate Supervision) - Stability and moment maps in gauge theory - Next position: Data analyst at Queensland Health

Bailey Whitbread (MPhil)- Character varieties with regular monodromy - Next position: PhD with Geordie Williamson at Uni Sydney. 

Stefano Giannini (MPhil) - Geometry of additive character varieties - Next position: PhD with Finnur Larusson at Uni Adeladie. 

Peter Campbell (Honours, Associate Supervision) - Sieve of Eratosthenes and Twin Primes: An

Accessible Approach to Brun’s Theorem - Next position: PhD at UQ under Adrian Dudek

Declan Fletcher (Honours) - Toric varieties - Next Position: Apogee Industry

GyeongHyeon Nam (PhD) -Arithmetic geometry of character varieties with regular monodromy - Next position: Postdoc at Ajou University 

Declan Fletcher (Undergraduate research) - Hyperplane arrangments - Next position: Honours Student in our group. 

Stefano Giannini (Honours) - Invariant theory of unipotent groups - Next position: MPhil at UQ

Nick Bridger (MPhil) - E-Series of character stacks -   (Honours) - The Riemann--Hilbert correspondence  Next position: PhD student at Sydney

Bailey Whitbread (Honours)- Hecke Algebras and Gelfand pairs in representation theory Next Position: MPhil at UQ

Max Lewis (Associate Supervisor, PhD) - Carmichael numbers and polynomials - Next Position: Left academic to work in gaming industry.

Toan Pham (Honours) - Weil's conjecture on the Tamagawa number - Next position: PhD at John Hopkins with Yannis Sakellaridis

Aiden Suter (Associate Supervisor, Honours, and MPhil) - W-algebras and representation theory - Next position: PhD at the Fields Institute 

Marielle Ong (MPhil) -  Narasamhan--Seshadri Corespondence  - Next position: PhD at UPenn

Sam Weatherhog (Honours and MPhil) -  Jordan Decomposition for Differential Operators -  MPhil student at UQ - Next position: left academics to work as a trainer

Benedict Morrissey (Associate Supervisor, Master's ANU) - Geometric Langlands - Next position: PhD at UPenn

Sinead Wilson (MPhil) -  Stabilisers of eigenvectors in complex reflection groups - Next position: PhD at ANU

Alexander Dunn (Associate Supervisor, Honours) - Elliptic curves - Next Position: PhD at UIUC

Shahrina Ismail (PhD) (Associate Supervisor) - Rational points on elliptic curves - Next position: Senior lecture Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia

Alexander Clark (Honours) (Associate Supervisor, Honours) - Borel-Weil Theorem - Next position: Masters at Melbourne

If you are interested in joining our group: 

Please send me an email explaining why you are interested in working with me (after familiarising yourself with my research). What I'm thinking about is best reflected in my recent papers/preprints. 

It will be helpful if you include in your email the following material: 

1. Curriculum vitae

2. A scan of all your grades for Bachelor's degree and for Master's degree (if you have one) 

3. A copy of any writing you have done (example an Honour's or Master's Thesis, or any paper you have written). 

You will need the above material for applying to postgraduate studies anywhere in the world, so you might as well get them in order. International students note that UQ has stringent English Language Requirements. You will need your results before you officially apply to UQ. Roughly speaking, this means that you have to have your test done at least six months in advance of your expected start date. 

International students who require funding, there are scholarships available at UQ. To qualify, usually you should have a publication and have written a Masters Thesis or equivalent. Familiarise yourself with the deadlines and requirements as they are quite stringent.

If you want a reference letter from me: 

Please give me at least two weeks notice. A month notice would be more desirable. 

I have been asked by students what they should do to receive strong recommendation letter for going to grad school, etc. Besides being a strong student, it is very important that you document all your mathematical activities. One way to do this is with an extended and updated CV. 

To write a good reference letter, I need to know you well, and need to be able to write good amount on your behalf. Having taken one course with me is not sufficient, because then the reference letter would be a repetition of the CV and will not be helpful. If we have had extensive mathematical discussions, then that is more promising. I will also need an extended version of your transcripts. If you know the percentage grade in each course, then I would like to have that as well. 

Provide as much information in your email requesting letter as possible. In particular, mention which courses you have taken with me and what grade (percentage) you received. Attached extended CV, transcripts, and anything else that might help your case. 

The best way to organise the information is to have a website where you record all the talks you have given (along with scans or TeX notes of the talks whenever possible), all the conferences/workshops you have attended, any sort of student seminar series that you regularly attend, any kind of leadership skills you have developed such as organising student seminar series, etc. If you don't have a documentation of what you have done, then that means I have less to write for you when time comes, so your application will be less competitive. 

Also, please send me the list of places you are applying and which faculty member there you want to work with. 

Some useful links: 

• Ravi Vakils post on doing a PhD in maths.

• Terry Tao's post on research mathematics career 

• Ginzburg's problems on linear algebra and representation theory 

• Drinfeld's problems on algebraic geometry.