Michaël Maex

Research Interests

My main interests lie at the intersection between arithmetic, non-archimedean and tropical geometry. In particular I'm interested in the behaviour of weight functions on Berkovich-analytic spaces and their relation to invariants of abelian varieties related to tame and wild base change, like Edixhoven's jumps and Chai's base change conductor. 

About me

Mathematics

In 2016 I started a Bachelor in Mathematics at KU Leuven, from which I graduated in 2020 with summa cum laude distinction. I then started my a master degree of which the first year was at the university of Bonn, and the second year at KU Leuven. I graduated in 2022 with summa cum laude with congratulations of the board of examiners distinction. My master thesis was titled Berkovich geometry, weight functions and reduction of elliptic curves, under the supervision of Johannes Nicaise. In September 2022 I started a PhD programme also supervised by Johannes Nicaise.

Outside of mathematics 

Since I was a child, I've been fascinated by music. I'm especially interested in music theory and playing the pipe organ. I love cooking (vegetarian) dishes. To clear my mind I like to go on runs and recently I have been enjoying rock climbing.

Outreach and other mathematical activities

• Counsellor at Promys Europe 2019

• Counsellor at Promys 2020

• Coorganiser of the KU Leuven summer of science summer school aimed at high school students.

• Teaching for the Flemish Mathematical Olympiad

Papers

• Jumps of Jacobians via orthogonal canonical forms, joint with Enis Kaya and Art Waeterschoot, published in Proceedings of the AMS, arxiv