We are home to 30 faculty, four staff, approximately 60 graduate students, several research visitors, and numerous undergraduate students. We offer exciting and challenging programs leading to BMath, MMath and PhD degrees. We nurture a very active research environment and are intensely devoted to both ground-breaking research and excellent teaching.
News
A Lasting Legacy in Pure Mathematics
Read about why Sara Kannan (BA '16) established the Dr. P. L. Kannappan Memorial Scholarship!
Pure Mathematics professor honoured with Distinguished Teacher Award
Pure Math Professor Yu-Ru Liu has been honoured with the University of Waterloo’s Distinguished Teacher Award, 2026.
Join us in congratulating Professor Liu and read more here!
Pure Math Department celebrates outstanding Teaching by a Graduate Student and Teaching Assistants at awards ceremony
On November 3, the department of Pure Mathematics held its Graduate Teaching and Teaching Assistant Awards Ceremony, an event that celebrates the accomplishments of its remarkable graduate students
Events
Student Number Theory Seminar | AJ Fong | Galois actions on the Picard groups of K3 surfaces of rank 2
AJ Fong (University of Waterloo)
Galois actions on the Picard groups of K3 surfaces of rank 2
We are interested in studying the actions of the absolute Galois group on curves on surfaces. As surfaces of intermediate type, K3 surfaces can be considered geometric analogues of elliptic curves. In this talk I will describe the combinatorial data controlling the possible actions of the Galois group, and ongoing work on constructing (more) explicit examples of surfaces with the desired actions.
MC 5479
Pure Math Colloquium | Nigel Hitchin | Geometry and Physics in two dimensions
Algebraic Geometry Working Seminar | Abdullah Zubair | Fantastacks
Abdullah Zubair (University of Waterloo)
Fantastacks
In this talk, we will discuss fantastacks which are a special family of toric stacks whose construction parallels the Cox construction of toric varieties. We will compute the Picard group of any fantastack and give an idea of how to compute the cohomology of line bundles.
In the pre-seminar period, I will give a brief overview of toric stacks.
MC 5403