Welcome!

My name is John Naughton, and I am a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis working with Ali Daemi. Before coming to WashU I received my Bachelors from the University of Chicago.

I am interested in low dimensional topology. In particular, I use gauge-theoretic approaches to study knot theory and low-dimensional spaces. I am also interested in quantum invariants and their categorifications, as well as their relationships with gauge-theoretic objects.

General info

My email is j.naughton (at) wustl (dot) edu

Things I'm excited about!

I was awarded the 2026 Dean's award for Teaching Excellence from the College of Arts and Sciences
I was honored to recieve the 2026 Robert H. McDowell Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics from the WashU Math Department

Seminars

I am currently co-organizing a learning seminar on Lean and formalization in mathematics
I co-organize (with Akshata Pisharody) the graduate student geometry/topology seminar at WashU. (This seminar is on pause Autumn 2026)
I co-organize (with Ching-Chia Hsu) the WashU gauge theory student seminar.

Places we may have met

New Frontiers in Gauge Theory, Topology, and Physics - September 2026 in Okinawa
Workshop and Conference - Low Dimensional Topology and Floer Theory - August 2025 in Montreal
Summer School on Modern Tools in Low Dimensional Topology - June 2025 in Trieste
Graduate Student Topology and Geometry Conference - April 2025 in Bloomington, IN
Saint Louis Topology Conference - May 2024 in Saint Louis, MO
Graduate Student Topology and Geometry Conference - April 2024 in East Lansing, MI
Geometry and Topology Workshop at UCLA - January 2024 in Los Angeles, CA
Western Algebraic Geometry Symposium - November 2023 in Saint Louis, MO
Summer School in Geometry and Topology - July 2023 in Princeton, NJ

Undergrad papers

Intro to Schubert Calculus - From the 2021 REU at UChicago, mentored by Pallav Goyal
Chebotarev's Density Theorem - Final Paper from Algebraic Number Theory at UChicago, taught by Trevor Hyde
Universality in Chaotic Dynamics - Final Paper from Dynamical Systems at UChicago, taught by Alexander Strang

Current (non-math) reading:

The Overstory by Richard Powers

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