Josie Hlavinka

About Me

Hi! My name is Josie (she/they), and I'm a third year graduate student in the Mathematics department at UC Berkeley. I am advised by David Nadler, and I am grateful to be supported by an NSF GRFP grant.

I work between symplectic and algebraic geometry, focusing largely on the geometry of varieties which have interesting interactions with combinatorics.

In particular, I have pending projects both on mirror symmetry for acyclic cluster varieties and toric degenerations for closed positroid varieties.

You can contact me at josephhlavinka AT berkeley DOT edu, and one can find my past papers below.

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I received my Sc. B. from Brown University, magna cum laude. I worked fairly extensively with Melody Chan and Brendan Hassett while I was there.

In my free time I listen to a great deal of experimental music, and am a napping champion. I also recently got 3rd place in a donut eating contest.

Research

Automorphisms of Tropical Hassett Spaces (with Sam Freedman and Siddarth Kannan), in Port. Math. 79 (2022), no. 1/2, pp. 163-197.

Motivic Homotopy Theory and Cellular Schemes, UChicago REU (2022).

Drafts of my undergraduate honors thesis, describing a generalization of the Fulton-Macpherson compactification of Conf_n(X) to a family of "weighted" compactification of spaces of the form X^n \ a set of small diagonals, are available upon request.

Teaching and Outreach

I was a GSI for Alex Paulin in Math 1A and 1B, Berkeley's Calc I and II courses, in Fall 2024 and 2025 and Spring 2025 (resp.). If I was your GSI and you are in need of further support, please reach out!

For most of the summers between 2019 and 2023 I was very lucky to work as an instructor at Bridge to Enter Advanced Mathematics (BEAM), where I taught under-represented and low-income rising 7th graders some really cool math. Check BEAM out!

I am very excited to be an instructor at Mount Tamalpais College starting this coming Fall.

Organizing

I am an organizer for David Nadler's Geometric Representation Theory, notes for which are written by the inimitable John S. Nolan and hosted here. The topic of the seminar was equivariant homotopy theory in Fall 2025, and the topic is potent categorical representations (in the sense of Ben-Zvi and Nadler's ICM address) this semester.

I am an ardent believer in Federico Ardila's axioms for mathematical education, outreach, and practice:

Axiom 1. Mathematical potential is equally present in different groups, irrespective of geographic, demographic, and economic boundaries.

Axiom 2. Everyone can have joyful, meaningful, and empowering mathematical experiences.

Axiom 3. Mathematics is a powerful, malleable tool that can be shaped and used differently by various communities to serve their needs.

Axiom 4. Every student deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.

As Prof. Adrila notes, these statements should not sound revolutionary, and considering the current practices of mathematical society, they are a pressing call to action.

Friends :)

I'm lucky to have some cool mathematical friends. Check out their websites!

Vilas Winstein: https://vilas.us/

Charlotte Keisling: https://sites.google.com/berkeley.edu/keisling

Gabriel Beiner: https://math.berkeley.edu/~gbeiner/

Will Fisher: https://math.berkeley.edu/~willfisher/

Brian Sun: https://math.berkeley.edu/~bsun/

Zarif Ahsan: https://sgs.stanford.edu/news/meet-zarif-ahsan-25