Samuel J. Taylor

Hello!

My name is Sam Taylor and I am an Associate Professor (and a Hazel Tomlinson Professor) in the Mathematics Department at Temple University. Before coming to Temple, I was an NSF postdoctoral fellow and Gibbs Assistant Professor at Yale University. I received my PhD in mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014, where I was advised by Alan Reid.

My research interests include geometric topology, geometric group theory, and dynamics; especially hyperbolic 3-manifolds, pseudo-Anosov flows, mapping class groups, Out(F), hyperbolic groups, random walks, and the ergodic theory of group actions. Below, you can find a list of my papers with links to the arXiv.

My email address is samuel.taylor@temple.edu.

My office is located at Wachman Hall 1028.

Graduate students:

Ruth Meadow-Macleod
Brandis Whitfield
Ross Griebenow
Ellis Buckminster
Adam Smith
Chathumini Kondasinghe

Papers / Preprints:

1. Simultaneous universal circles. With Michael Landry and Yair Minsky.
  Preprint, 2024. PDF. Arxiv Link
2. Quadratic-time computations for pseudo-Anosov mapping classes. With Dan Margalit, Balazs Strenner, and S. Oyku Yurttas.
  Submitted, 2024. PDF. Arxiv Link
3. Transverse surfaces and pseudo-Anosov flows. With Michael Landry and Yair Minsky.
  Submitted, 2024. PDF. Arxiv Link
4. Endperiodic maps via pseudo-Anosov flows. With Michael Landry and Yair Minsky.
  Submitted, 2023. PDF. Arxiv Link
5. Constructing endperiodic loxodromics of infinite-type arc graphs. With Priyam Patel.
  Math. Z. 310 (2025), no. 82. PDF. Arxiv Link
6. Equidistribution of hyperbolic groups in homogeneous spaces. With Ilya Gekhtman and Giulio Tiozzo.
  Math. Ann. 390 (2024), 4692-4638. PDF. Arxiv Link
7. Orientable maps and polynomial invariants of free-by-cyclic groups. With Spencer Dowdall and Radhika Gupta.
  Adv. Math. 415 (2023), 108872. PDF. Arxiv Link
8. Subsurface distances for hyperbolic 3-manifolds fibering over the circle. With Yair Minsky.
  Groups, Geom. Dyn. 18 (2024), no. 3, 963–1006. PDF. Arxiv Link
9. Flows, growth rates, and the veering polynomial. With Michael Landry and Yair Minsky.
  Ergod. Theory Dyn. Syst. 43 (2023), no. 9, 3026-3107. PDF. Arxiv Link
10. Central limit theorems for counting measures in coarse negative curvature. With Ilya Gekhtman and Giulio Tiozzo.
  Compos. Math. 158 (2022), no. 10, 1980-2013. PDF. Arxiv Link
11. A polynomial invariant for veering triangulations. With Michael Landry and Yair Minsky.
  J. Eur. Math. Soc. (JEMS), 6 (2024), no. 2, 731–788. PDF. Arxiv Link
12. Weil--Petersson translation length and manifolds with many fibered fillings. With Chris Leininger, Yair Minsky, and Juan Souto.
  Adv. Math. 376 (2021), 107457. PDF. Arxiv Link
13. Random trees in the boundary of Outer space. With Ilya Kapovich, Joseph Maher, and Catherine Pfaff.
  Geom. Topol. 26 (2022), no. 1, 127-162 PDF. Arxiv Link
14. Covers of surfaces, Kleinian groups, and the curve complex. With Tarik Aougab and Priyam Patel.
  J. Topol. 15 (2022), no. 4, 1833-1863. PDF. Arxiv Link
15. A central limit theorem for random closed geodesics: proof of the Chas--Li--Maskit conjecture. With Ilya Gekhtman and Giulio Tiozzo.
  Adv. Math. 358 (2019), 106852. PDF. Arxiv Link
16. Random veering triangulations are not geometric. With David Futer and William Worden.
  Groups, Geom. Dyn. 14 (2020), no. 3, 1077-1126. PDF. Arxiv Link
17. Random outer automorphisms of free groups: Attracting trees and their singularity structures. With Ilya Kapovich, Joseph Maher, and Catherine Pfaff.
  Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 375 (2022), no. 1, 525-557. PDF. Arxiv Link
18. Counting problems in graph products and relatively hyperbolic groups. With Ilya Gekhtman and Giulio Tiozzo.
  Israel J. Math. 237 (2020), 311-371. PDF. Arxiv Link
19. Rank and Nielsen equivalence in hyperbolic extensions. With Spencer Dowdall.
  Internat. J. Algebra Comput. 29 (2019), no. 4, 615-625. PDF. Arxiv Link
20. Effective Masur--Minsky distance formulas and applications to hyperbolic 3-manifolds. With Tarik Aougab and Richard Webb.
  Preliminary draft, 2017. PDF.
21. Largest projections for random walks and shortest curves in random mapping tori. With Alessandro Sisto.
  Math. Res. Lett. 26 (2019), no. 1, 293-321. PDF. Arxiv Link
22. Intersection properties of stable subgroups and bounded cohomology. With Yago Antolin, Mahan Mj, and Alessandro Sisto.
  Indiana Univ. Math. J. 68 (2019), 179-199. PDF. Arxiv Link
23. Pulling back stability with applications to Out(F_n) and relatively hyperbolic groups. With Tarik Aougab and Matthew Durham.
  J. London Math. Soc. 96 (2017), no. 3, 565-583. PDF. Arxiv Link
24. Counting loxodromics for hyperbolic actions. With Ilya Gekhtman and Giulio Tiozzo.
  J. Topol. 11 (2018), no. 2, 379-419. PDF. Arxiv Link
25. Fibered faces, veering triangulations, and the arc complex. With Yair Minsky.
  Geom. Funct. Anal. 27 (2017), no. 6, 1450-1496. PDF. Arxiv Link
26. The co-surface graph and the geometry of hyperbolic free group extensions. With Spencer Dowdall.
  J. Topol. 10 (2017), no. 2, 447-482. PDF. Arxiv Link
27. Pseudo-Anosovs optimizing the ratio of Teichmuller to curve graph translation length. With Tarik Aougab.
  In the Tradition of Ahlfors--Bers, VII, Contemp. Math., Vol. 696 (2017), 17-28. PDF. Arxiv Link
28. Cannon--Thurston maps for hyperbolic free group extensions. With Spencer Dowdall and Ilya Kapovich.
  Israel J. Math. 216 (2016), no. 2, 753-797. PDF. Arxiv Link
29. Contracting orbits in Outer space. With Spencer Dowdall.
  Math. Z. 293 (2019) no.1-2, 767-787. PDF. Arxiv Link
30. Random extensions of free groups and surface groups are hyperbolic. With Giulio Tiozzo.
  Int. Math. Res. Notices (2016) 2016 (1): 294-310. PDF. Arxiv Link
31. Hyperbolic extensions of free groups. With Spencer Dowdall.
  Geom. Topol. 22 (2018), no. 1, 517-570. PDF. Arxiv Link
32. The geometry of purely loxodromic subgroups of right-angled Artin groups. With Thomas Koberda and Johanna Mangahas.
  Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 369 (2017), no. 11, 8179-8208. PDF. Arxiv Link
33. Small intersection numbers in the curve graph. With Tarik Aougab.
  Bull. London Math. Soc. 46 (2014), no. 5, 989-1002. PDF. Arxiv Link
34. Convex cocompactness and stability in mapping class groups. With Matthew Durham.
  Algebr. Geom. Topol. 15 (2015), no. 5, 2837-2857. PDF. Arxiv Link
35. Products of Farey graphs are totally geodesic in the pants graph. With Alex Zupan.
  J. Topol. Anal. 08 (2016), no. 2, 287-313. PDF. Arxiv Link
36. Right-angled Artin groups and Out(F_n) I: quasi-isometric embeddings.
  Groups Geom. Dyn. 9 (2015), no. 1, 275-316. PDF. Arxiv Link
37. Convex cocompactness in mapping class groups via quasiconvexity in right-angled Artin groups. With Johanna Mangahas.
  Proc. London Math. Soc. 112 (2016), no. 5, 855-881. PDF. Arxiv Link
38. A note on subfactor projections.
  Algebr. Geom. Topol. 14 (2014), no. 2, 805-821. PDF. Arxiv Link
39. The Jones polynomial and boundary slopes of alternating knots. With Cynthia Curtis.
  J. Knot Theory Ramifications 20 (2011), no. 10, 1345-1354. Arxiv Link
40. The spiral index of knots. With Colin Adams et al.
  Math. Proc. Cambridge Philos. Soc. 149 (2010), no. 2, 297-315. Arxiv Link

The work shown here is partially supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the Simons Foundation, and a fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.