Cornell Mathematics Doctorates, 2000-2009


In 1999, after having occupied White Hall for most of its existence, the department move to Malott Hall, the former home of the Johnson School named after Deane Waldo Malott, the sixth president of Cornell University (1951-1963). Malott Hall's north wing was build in 1963 (Architects: Warner, Burns, Toan & Lunde). The south wing (annex) was added in 1977 (Architects: Levatich, Miller & Hoffman). The architectural drawing pictured here (1975) is from John Clair Miller and Alex Krueger, for the addition project. John Clair Miller is Professor Emeritus in the College of Architecture, Arts and Planning.

Ninety nine doctorates were awarded during the first decade of the twenty-first century. From 2000 to 2006, the graduate program was supported in part by a Vertical Integration of Research and Education in the Mathematical Sciences (VIGRE) grant from the Division of Mathematical Sciences at the National Science Foundation. The goal of this program was "to increase the number of well-prepared U.S. citizens, nationals, and permanent residents who pursue careers in the mathematical sciences". The NSF phased-out the VIGRE program by the end of the decade. Thirty five faculty supervised graduate students during this decade. The most active were Anil Nerode and Laurent Saloff-Coste (7), Louis Billera, Kenneth Brown and Mike Stillman (6), Leonard Gross, John Hubbard and Lars Wahclbin (5), and Jose Escobar, Richard Shore and Karen Vogtmann (4).


2000 (4 doctorates)


Stephen Bullock

Title: Warped Cohomology. Advisor: Birgit Speh. Career: National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Andrei Caldararu

Title: Derived Categories of Twisted Sheaves on Calami-Yau Manifolds. Advisor: Mark Gross. Career: University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Antal Jarai

Title: Incipient Infinite Clusters in 2D Percolation. Advisor: Harry Kesten. Career: University of Bath.

Walker McMillan White

Title: Characterizations for Computable Structures. Advisor: Richard Shore. Career: Director, Game Design Initiative at Cornell (Computer Science).

2001 (8 doctorates)


Henrique Morais Araujo

Title: On the Total Scalar Curvature Plus Total Mean Curvature Functional. Advisor: Jose Escobar. Career: Universidade Federal de Pernambuco.

David Anthony Brown

Title: Using Spider Theory to Explore Parameter Spaces. Advisor: John Hubbard. Career: Ithaca College.

Suman Ganguli

Title: Recursive Models of Modal Logics. Advisor: Anil Nerode. Career: New York City College of Technology and The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.

Brian Meloon

Title: Construction of Markov Partitions for Linear and Nonlinear Automorphisms of Tori. Advisor: John Guckenheimer. Career: Researcher at Campbell & Co.

Nathaniel Miller

Title: A Diagrammatic Formal System for Euclidean Geometry. Advisor: David Henderson. Career: University of Northern Colorado.

Kathryn Nyman

Title: Enumeration in Geometric Lattices and the Symmetric Group. Advisor: Louis Billera. Career: Willamette University.

Catherine Stenson

Title: Linear Inequalities for Flag f-vectors of Polytopes. Advisor: Louis Billera. Career: Juanita College.

Anke Walz

Title: On the Bellows Conjecture. Advisor: Robert Connelly. Career: Kutztown University of Pennsylvania.

2002 (10 doctorates)


Sarah Spence Adams

Title: Subspace Subcodes and Generalized Coset Codes. Advisor: Dexter Kozen. Career: Olin College of Engineering.

Ryan Budney

Title: Representations of Mapping Class Groups via Topological Constructions. Advisor: Allen Hatcher. Career: University of Victoria.

Alan Demlow

Title: Estimates for and Properties of Mixed Finite Element Methods for Elliptic Problems. Advisor: Lars Wahlbin. Career: Texas A&M University.

Ferenc Gerlits

Title: Invariants in Chain Complexes of Graphs. Advisor: Karen Vogtmann Career: Renyi Institute, Budapest; Morgan Stanley, Budapest.

Jennifer (Suzanne) Lynch Hruska Boyd

Title: On the Numerical Construction of Hyperbolic Structures for Complex Dynamical Systems. Advisor: John Smillie. Career: University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

Geoffrey Hruska

Title: Nonpositively Curved Spaces with Isolated Flats. Advisor: Karen Vogtmann. Career: University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

Swapneel Mahajan

Title: Shuffles and Shellings via Projection Maps. Advisor: Kenneth Brown. Career: Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai.

Joseph Miller

Title: Co-ce Classes in Computable Analysis and Topology. Advisor: Anil Nerode. Career: University of Wisconsin, Madison.

David Revelle

Title: Random Walks on Solvable Groups. Advisor: Laurent Saloff-Coste. Career: Senior Instructor at The Infinite Actuary.

Leah Stella (Gold)

Title: Some Homological Results in Commutative Algebra. Advisor: Michael Stillman Career: Cleveland State University.

2003 (4 doctorates)


Rebecca Shuller Borbely

Title: A Theory of Multitask Learning for Learning from Disparate Data Sources. Advisor: Anil Nerode. Career: CyberPoint International, Md.

Matthew Horak

Title:Mapping Class Subgroups of Automorphism Groups of Free Groups. Advisor: Karen Vogtmann. Career: University of Wisconsin, Stout.

Samuel Hsiao

Title:Peak Quasisymmetric Functions and Flag Enumeration in Eulerian Posets. Advisor: Louis Billera. Career: Bard College.

Fernando Coda Marques

Title: Existence and Compactness Theorems on Conformal Deformation of Metrics. Advisor: Jose Escobar. Career: Princeton University. Speaker at the 2010 International Congress of Mathematicans in Hyderabad. Plenary speaker at the 2014 International Congress of Mathematicians in Seoul.

2004 (13 doctorates)


James Belk

Title:Thompson's Group F. Advisor: Kenneth Brown. Career: Bard College.

Janet Best

Title: The Mathematics of Ecological Competition. Advisor: Richard Durrett. Career: Ohio State University.

Nelia Charalambous

Title: On the LP Spectrum of the Hodge Laplacian and Logarithmic Sobolev Inequalities on Non-Compact Manifolds. Advisor: Jose Escobar and Leonard Gross. Career: University of Cyprus.

Dan Ciubotaru

Title: Unitary Representations of Exceptional p-adic Groups. Advisor: Dan Barbasch. Career: University of Oxford.

Jean Cortissoz

Title: On the Ricci Flow in Rotationally Symmetric Manifolds with Boundary. Advisor: Jose Escobar. Career: University of Toledo.

Christopher Fransisco

Title: Hilbert Functions and Graded Free Resolutions. Advisor: Michael Stillman. Career: Oklahoma State University.

Yuval Gabay

Title: Double Jump Inversions and Strong Minimal Covers in the Turing Degrees. Advisor: Richard Shore. Career:

Noam Greenberg

Title: The Role of True Finiteness in the Admissible Recursively Enumerable Degrees. Advisor: Richard Shore. Career: Victoria University of Wellington.

Jaeun Ku

Title: Least-Squares Methods for Second-Order Elliptic Partial Differential Equations. Advisor: Lars Wahlbin. Career: Oklahoma State University.

Dmitriy Leykekhman

Title: Pointwise Weighted Error Estimates for Parabolic Finite Element Equations. Advisor: Lars Wahlbin. Career: University of Connecticut.

Yi Lin

Title: Equivariant Symplectic Hodge Theory and Strong Lefschetz Manifolds. Advisor: Reyer Sjamaar. Career: Georgia Southern University.

Shawn Walker

Title: Shift Techniques and Multicover Inequalities on Colored Complexes. Advisor: Louis Billera. Career: National Security Agency.

Harrison Huibin Zhou

Title: Minimax Estimation With Thresholding and Asymptotic Equivalence for Gaussian Variance Regression. Advisor: J.T. Gene Hwang and Michael Nussbaum. Career: Yale University, Statistics.

2005 (14 doctorates)


Maria Belk

Title: Applications of Stress Theory: Realizing graphs and Kneser-Poulsen. Advisor: Robert Connelly. Career: Bard College.

Nathanael Berestycki

Title:Phase Transitions for the Distance of Random Walks and Applications to Genome Rearrangement. Advisor: Rick Durrett and Jean-Francois Legall. Career: University of Cambridge.

Jose Trujillo Ferreras

Title: The Random Walk Loop Soup and the Expected Area of the Brownian Loop in the Plane. Advisor: Gregory Lawler. Career: Quantitative Financial Analyst (Model Validation) at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Lee Gibson

Title: The Number of Sites Visited by a Random Walk on an Infinite Graph. Advisor: Laurent Saloff-Coste. Career: Instructor, The Infinite Actuary.

Radu Haiduc

Title: Horseshoes in the Forced van der Pol Equation. Advisor: John Guckenheimer. Career: Director, Credit Suisse.

Spencer Hamblen

Title: Lifting -Dimensional Galois Representations. Advisor: Ravi Ramakrishna. Career: McDaniel College.

Christopher Hardin

Title: The Horn Theory of Relational Kleene Algebra. Advisor: Dexter Kozen. Career: Union College; Finance (Jane Street Capital, NY).

Todd Kemp

Title: Hypercontractivity in Non-Commutative Holomorphic Spaces. Advisor: Leonard Gross. Career: University of California San Diego.

Antonio Montalban

Title: Beyond the Arithmetic. Advisor: Richard Shore. Career: University of California, Berkeley. Speaker at the 2014 International Congress of Mathematician in Seoul.

Roland Roeder

Title: Topology for the Basins of Attraction of Newton's Method in Two Complex Variables. Advisor: John Hubbard. Career: Indiana University, Purdue University indianapolis.

Hasanjan Sayit

Title: Realistic No Arbitrage Condition. Advisor: Philip Protter. Career: Durham University.

Fernando Schwartz

Title: Scalar Curvature Problems on Manifolds with Boundary. Advisor: Leonard Gross, Richard Schoen and Jose Escobar. Career: University of Tennessee.

Serguei Slavnov

Title: Semantic Investigations of Linear Logic. Advisor: Anil Nerode. Career: Higher School of Economics, Moscow.

Russell Woodroofe

Title: Shelling The Coset Poset. Advisor: Kenneth Brown. Career: Mississippi State University.

2006 (13 doctorates)


Drew Armstrong

Title: Generalized Noncrossing Partitions and Combinatorics of Coxeter Groups. Advisor: Louis Billera. Career: University of Miami.

Kristin Camenga

Title: Angle Sums on Polytopes and Polytonal Complexes. Advisor: Louis Billera. Career: Houghton College; Juanita College.

Guan-Yu Chen

Title: The Cutoff Phenomenon for Finite Markov Chains. Advisor: Laurent Saloff-Coste. Career: National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan.

William Gryc

Title: On the Holonomy of the Coulomb Connection over 3-Manifolds with Boundary. Advisor: Leonard Gross. Career: Muhlenberg College.

Jason Martin

Title: Building Infinite Ray-Class Towers with Specific Signatures and Small Bounded Root Discriminant. Advisor: Ravi Ramakrishna. Career: NSA, James Madison University.

Jeffrey Mermin

Title: Lexicographic Ideals. Advisor: Michael Stillman. Career: Oklahoma State University Stillwater.

Steve Morris

Title: Four- and Six-Dimensional Nilmanifolds and Symplectic Forms. Advisor: Reyer Sjamaar. Career: Unknown.

Melanie Pivarski

Title: Heat Kernels on Euclidean Complexes. Advisor: Laurent Saloff-Coste. Career: Roosevelt University.

Franco Saliola

Title: The Face Semigroup Algebra of a Hyperplane Arrangement. Advisor: Kenneth Brown. Career: Universié du Québec à Montréal.

Steven Sinnott

Title: Results in Computational Algebra of Bayesian Networks. Advisor: Michael Stillman. Career: unknown.

John Thacker

Title: Properties of Brownian and Random Walk Loop Soups. Advisor: Gregory Lawler. Career: unknown.

Birgitta Vermesi

Title:Intersection Exponents for Random Walks on Cylinders. Advisor: Gregory Lawler. Career: DigiPen.

Yan Zeng

Title: Compensators of Stopping Times. Advisor: Philip Protter. Career: Quantitative Analyst, VP, State Street Corporation.

2007 (12 doctorates)


Jason Bode

Title: Isoperimetric Constants and Self-Avoiding Walks and Polygons on Hyperbolic Coveter Groups. Advisor: Kenneth Brown. Career: Lander University.

Benjamin Chan

Title: Coexistence of Contact Processes. Advisor: Richard Durrett. Career: Director, Operational Risk Quantification at American Express.

Farkhod Eshmatov

Title: The Calogero-Moser Correspondence for Noncommutative Deformations of Kleinian Singularities. Advisor: Yuri Berest. Career: Sichuan University.

Pavel Gyrya

Title: Heat Kernel Estimates for Inner Uniform Subsets of Harnack-type Dirichlet Spaces. Advisor: Laurent Saloff-coste. Career: American Express (Risk Management).

Henri Johnston

Title: The Trace Map and Galois Module Structure of Rings of Integers for Absolutely Abelian Number Fields. Advisor: Ravi Ramakrishna. Career: University of Exeter.

Evgueni Klebanov

Title: Asymptotic Behavior of Convolutions of Centered Density on Lie Group of Polynomial Volume Growth. Advisor: Laurent Saloff-Coste. Career: Banking Industry.

Andrei Maxim

Title: Aspects of the Finite Element Method for Elliptic Partial Differential Equations. Advisor: Lars Wahlbin. Career: Executive Director - Equities Strategies at Goldman Sachs.

Vadims Moldavskis

Title: New Generic Properties of Real and Complex Dynamical Systems. Advisor: Yulij Ilyashenko. Career: Interest rate risk manager at HSBC.

Achilleas Sinefakopoulos

Title: On Some Classes of Borel Fixed Ideals and their Cellular Resolutions. Advisor: Michael Stillman. Career: unknown.

Aaron Solo

Title: Finite Element Methods for Elliptic and Parabolic Problems with Low Regularity Boundary Data. Advisor: Lars Wahlbin. Career: Quantitative research associate for Susquehanna International Group.

Mauricio Velasco

Title: Monomial Resolutions and the Cox Rings of Del Mezzo Surfaces. Advisor: Michael Stillman. Career: Universidad de los Andes.

Treven Wall

Title: A Fatou Theorem for a Class of Quasi-linear Elliptic Partial Differential Equations. Advisor: Leonard Gross. Career: The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

2008 (10 doctorates)


Bryant Adams

Title: Representing Processes as Update Automata and Transducers. Advisor: Anil Nerode. Career: unknown.

Edoardo Carta-Gerardino

Title: Update Transducers and Linear Recurrence Equations over Semirings. Advisor: Anil Nerode. Career: CUNY York College.

Noam Horwitz

Title: Free Resolutions of Monomial Ideals. Advisor: Irena Peeva. Career: Industry.

Sarah Koch

Title: A New Link between Teichmüller Theory and Complex Dynamics. Advisor: John Hubbard. Career: University of Michigan.

Francesco Matucci

Title: Algorithms and Classification in Groups of Piecewise-Linear Homeomorphisms. Advisor: Kenneth Brown and Martin Kassabov. Career: Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil.

Mia Minnes

Title: Computability and Complexity Properties of Automatic Structures and Their Applications. Advisor: Anil Nerode. Career: Computer Science and Engineering Department, University of California San Diego.

Michael O'Connor

Title: Using Tree Automata to Investigate Intuitionistic Propositional Logic. Advisor: Richard Shore. Career: Jane Street Capital.

Jay Schweig

Title: Poset Convex-Ear Decompositions and Applications to the Flag h-Vector. Advisor: Edward Swartz. Career: Oklahoma State University.

John Workman

Title: End-point Estimates and Multi-parameter Paraproducts on Higher Dimensional Tori. Advisor: Camil Muscalu. Career: Practice Manager at The Advisory Board Company.

Jessica Zuniga

Title: Merging of Some Time Homogeneous and Inhomogeneous Markov Chains. Advisor: Laurent Saloff-Coste. Career: Relevance at LinkedIn.

2009 (11 doctorates)


Joshua Bowman

Title: Flat Structures and Complex Structures in Teichmüller Theory. Advisor: John Hubbard. Career: Pepperdine University.

Nikolay Dimitrov

Title: Rapid evolution of complex limit cycles. Advisor: Yulij Ilyashenko. Career: Technische Universitat Berlin.

Alimjon Eshmatov

Title: Group-Valued Implosion and Conjugation Spaces. Advisor: Reyer Sjamaar. Career: Georgia Southern University.

Bradley Forrest

Title: Degree Subcomplexes of Auter Space and Ribbon Graph Complexes. Advisor: Karen Vogtmann. Career: Stockton University.

Christopher Lipa

Title: Monodromy And Hénon Mappings. Advisor: John Hubbard. Career: Software Developer.

Jonathan Needleman

Title: On Branching Laws of Representations from GL_4(F) to Sp_4(F). Advisor: Brigit Speh. Career: Le Moyne College.

Radu Murgescu

Title: On the p-Class Groups of the Pure Number Field Q(N1/p) and its Galois Closure Q(N1/p, ζp). Advisor: Ravi Ramakrishna. Career: Quantitative Analyst, Citi.

Artem Pulemotov

Title: Geometric Flows on Manifolds with Boundary. Advisor: Leonard Gross. Career: The University of Queensland.

Biao Wang

Title: Foliations for Quasi-Fuchsian 3-Manifolds. Advisor: William Thurston. Career: Queensborough Community College.

James Worthington

Title: Automata, Representations, and Proofs. Advisor: Dexter Kozen and Anil Nerode. Career: unknown.

Zhigen Zhao

Title: Decision Approach and Shrinkage Confidence Intervals. Advisor: J.T. Gene Hwang and Michael Nussbaum. Career: Temple University.