Katherine Perry

At N Seoul Tower, taken during my Sabbatical!

Associate Professor of Mathematics

Soka University of America - Go Lions!

kperry at soka dot edu

Office: Gandhi 416

Welcome! I am an Associate Professor at Soka University of America in Aliso Viejo, CA. Before Soka, I was a postdoc at the University of Denver where I was mentored by Paul Horn. And before that, I attended graduate school at Auburn University in southern Alabama (War Eagle!) where I was advised by Chris Rodger for both my PhD and MSc. I feel incredibly lucky to have had such wonderful mentors.

Broadly speaking, my research focuses on graph theory, combinatorics, and design theory, but lately I have also been interested network science.

I'm also a member of the U.S. - Africa Collaborative Research Network, which aims to improve the human infrastructure in mathematical sciences in both the US and Sub-Saharan Africa, especially among underrepresented groups, with hopes of creating high quality, long-term U.S. - Africa research partnerships among researchers from diverse backgrounds. Through this research network, I have been attending the Masamu Advanced Study Institute's research workshop since 2016.

For more information, please see my cv.

News and Announcements

Starting this year, I am Soka's Assistant Dean of Student Success ! 🥳🎉
Fall 2026:
- Teaching Discrete Mathematics: Introduction to Advanced Math !
- Speaking in the Special Session on Topics in Combinatorics and Graph Theory at the AMS Fall Southeastern Sectional Meeting hosted by Kennesaw State University in October. Thank you so much to Guantao, Rong, and Joe for inviting me!
- Giving my Post Sabbatical Talk at SUA Oct 26th
- Attending the AAC&U Conference on Global Learning in Washington D.C. November 12-14.
- Attending the Masamu Advanced Study Institute's (virtual) research workshop in November.

Most recent paper: On fixing and distinguishing numbers of trees, joint with Calum Buchanan, Peter Dankelmann, Isabel Dorris, Paul Horn, and Emily Rivett-Carnac. You can see a talk I gave at IBS on these results here.

I am also so excited and proud to share the following updates from my current and former students and RAs:
- My former capstone student, Parik Chalise, attended the Masamu Advanced Study Institute's August research workshop in Pretoria, South Africa where he led a project group extending work related to his solo author paper, Sufficiency of Hall’s Condition for Graphic List Coloring !
- My former capstone student, Ngoc Doan, received an Extraordinary Ability O-1A Visa! She wrote an article about her experiences, which you can read here. Congratulations, Ngoc !!
- My research assistant, Hiroshi Nonaka, will be starting a PhD at Okinawa Institute of Technology in Machine Learning this fall. Congratulations, Hiroshi !
- My former capstone student, Mahir Anand, just finished his first year of a PhD in Computer Science at Iowa State University and will spend the summer doing CS research on campus. Multiple Soka students reached out to Mahir for grad school advice this past academic year we were all grateful for his time and guidance.

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