Our group

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


Current students

Declan Fletcher (Honours) - Geometric invariant theory

Bailey Whitbread (MPhil)- Character varieties with regular monodromy

Stefano Giannini (MPhil) - Geometry of additive character varieties 

Peter Campbell (Honours, Associate supervisor) - Distribution of primes and Brun's sieve

Caldar Barksdale (MPhil, Associate supervisor) - Algebraic methods in the study of Einstein's manifolds



UQ Faculty I closely collaborate with 

Ramiro Lafuente

Jorgen Rasmussen

Ole Warnaar 


Previous Postdocs

Samuel Jeralds - finished UQ position Jan 2023 - Currently lecturer at the University of Sydney 

Matthew Spong - finished UQ position in Nov 2021 - will be going to University of Bochum in Jan 2022

Valentin Buciumas - finished UQ position in Nov 2020- followed by a position at the University of Alberta and University of Amsterdam


Previous Students 

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

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

Aiden Suter (Associate Supervisor, Honours, and MPhil) - Zhu algebra of vertex algebras - Next position: PhD at the Fields Institute 

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

Reuben Malcom (Honours, UQ) - Jet spaces on Lie algebras - Left halfway and became a world wanderer. 

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

Jurgen Kanzler (Undergraduate Research) - Coxeter groups - PhD student at Bonn

Kevin Hollring (Undergraduate Research) - Coxeter groups

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

Sinead Wilson (MPhil) -  Complex Reflection Groups - Next position: PhD at ANU

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

Shahrina Ismail (PhD) (Associate Supervisor) - Rational points on elliptic curves - Next position: Senior lecturer in a Malaysian University 

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: