Gil Cavalcanti’s website

Welcome to my homepage. I am professor of mathematics in the mathematics department in Utrecht University.

My area of research is differential geometry. The particular objects I work with are generalized complex structures and adjacent concepts such as Poisson structures and Courant algebroids.

Generalized complex structures were introduced by Nigel Hitchin in 2002 and are a simultaneous generalization of complex and symplectic structures. Generalized complex structures live in Courant algebroids, a generalization of the tangent space of a manifold. They are also physically relevant, as they are home to several objects which appear naturally in string theory.

I also work on the nearby area called Poisson geometry whose origins lie in Hamiltonian dynamics in physics but which has a life of its own as a branch of differential geometry.

Since September 2021 I am the chair of Mastermath, the national master programme.

I have been a board member of the GQT cluster since 2018 and became the cluster director in January 2024.

Since January 2025 I am a member of PWN CO.