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
Two Pure Math professors win Outstanding Performance Awards
The awards are given each year to faculty members across the University of Waterloo who demonstrate excellence in teaching and research.
Pure Math PhD student wins Amit and Meena Chakma Award for Exceptional Teaching
The award ($1000), which is given to up to four recipients annually, recognizes excellence in teaching by students, including intellectual vigour, skill in communication and presentation of subject matter, and concern for the needs of students.
Spring 2023 Graduands
Congratulations to Clement Wan, MMath and Eric Boulter, PhD, who convocated in Spring 2023. Best of luck in your future endeavours!
Events
Computability Learning Seminar
Joey Lakerdas-Gayle, University of Waterloo
Fundamentals of Computability Theory 1
This semester in the Computablility Theory Learning Seminar, we will be learning general Computability Theory following Robert Soare's textbook. This week, we will prove some of the fundamental theorems about Turing machines in Chapter 1 and 2.
MC 5403
Differential Geometry Working Seminar
Aleksandar Milivojevic, University of Waterloo
Formality in rational homotopy theory
I will introduce the notion of formality of a manifold and will discuss some topological implications of this property, together with a computable obstruction to formality called the triple Massey product. I will then survey a conjecture relating formality and the existence of special holonomy metrics.
MC 5479
Pure Math Dept Colloquium
Robert Haslhofer, University of Toronto, University of Wisconsin Madison
Mean curvature flow through singularities
A family of surfaces moves by mean curvature flow if the velocity at each point is given by the mean curvature vector. Mean curvature flow first arose as a model of evolving interfaces in material science and has been extensively studied over the last 40 years. In this talk, I will give an introduction and overview for a general mathematical audience. To gain some intuition we will first consider the one-dimensional case of evolving curves. We will then discuss Huisken's classical result that the flow of convex surfaces always converges to a round point. On the other hand, if the initial surface is not convex we will see that the flow typically encounters singularities. Getting a hold of these singularities is crucial for most striking applications in geometry, topology and physics. In particular, we will see that flow through conical singularities is nonunique, but flow through neck singularities is unique. Finally, I will report on recent work with various collaborators on the classification of noncollapsed singularities in R^4.
MC 5501