Akram Alishahi
Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics
Akram joined UGA Department of Mathematics in 2019. Before UGA she worked at Columbia University, Max Planck institute for Mathematics- Bonn and she was a graduate student at Sharif University. Her research interests are low dimensional topology, knot theory and contact and symplectic geometry.
Website and Publications on Arxiv
Jason Cantarella
Professor, Department of Mathematics
Jason joined UGA Department of Mathematics in 2000. Before UGA, he worked at the University of Massachusetts GANG lab, and was a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on the shapes of random curves and polygons. He is particularly interested in questions like How likely is it that a random curve is knotted?, or What can we expect from a random diagram of a random space curve? His research is in the general area of geometric knot theory. He is also interested in the arts, especially in computer graphics and in sculpture.
Website and Publications on Arxiv
David Gay
Professor, Department of Mathematics
Dave joined UGA Department of Mathematics in 2011. Before UGA, he worked at University of Iowa, University of Cape Town, CRM/ISM, University of Arizona, Nankai University, and was a graduate student in UC Berkeley. He studies smooth and symplectic topology of 4-manifolds and the associated 3-dimensional issues. He is also interested in mathematical illustration and outreach, heavily motivated by low-dimensional geometry and topology.
Website and Publications on Arxiv
Peter Lambert-Cole
Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics
Peter Joined UGA Department of Mathematics in 2020. Before UGA, he worked at Max Planck Institute for Mathematics-Bonn, Georgia Tech, Indiana University and was a graduate student at Louisiana State University. His research interests are low-dimensional topology and contact and symplectic geometry.
Gordana MatiC
Professor, Department of Mathematics
Gordana joined UGA Department of Mathematics in 1991. Before joining UGA, she had postdoctoral positions at MIT, Institute for Advanced Study and Harvard, and was a graduate student at the University of Utah. Her research interests are 4- and 3-manifolds, contact topology, and Heegaard Floer homology.
Trent Schirmer
Senior Lecturer, Department of Mathematics
Trent joined UGA Department of Mathematics in 2016. Before UGA, he worked at Oklahoma State University and he was a graduate student in University of Iowa. He studyies 3- and 4-dimensional manifolds. In particular, he is interested in Heegaard splittings of 3-manifolds and trisections of 4-manifolds.
Michael Usher
Professor and Head, Department of Mathematics
Mike joined UGA Department of Mathematics in 2008. Before UGA, he worked at Princeton University and graduated from MIT. His research is in symplectic topology, in particular symplectic four-manifolds and Lefschetz fibrations, Hamiltonian dynamics, the geometry of symplectic diffeomorphisms and symplectic embeddings, and foundational issues related to filtered Floer and Morse homology.
Website and Publications on Arxiv
Postdocs
Feride Ceren Köse
Limited Term Assistant Professor, University of Georgia
Ceren jointed UGA Department of Mathematics in 2022. Her research interests lie in low-dimensional topology, with particular emphasis on knot theory and 3-manifolds.
Lev Tovstopyat-Nelip
Limited Term Assistant Professor, University of Georgia
Lev jointed UGA Department of Mathematics in 2022. His research interests are low-dimensional topology, Heegaard Floer homology, Khovanov homology, mapping class groups, contact and symplectic geometry.
Eduardo FErnandez Fuertes
Limited Term Assistant Professor, University of Georgia
Edu joined UGA Department of Mathematics in 2022. He earned his PhDfrom ICMAT - Universidad Complutense de Madrid under the supervision of Francisco Presas. His research lies in the fields of Contact and Symplectic Topology, more precisely in the interplay between the flexible and rigid sides of the field, the topology of the contactomorphism group, Legendrian embedding spaces, etc. He also thinks about diffeomorphism groups and smooth embedding spaces, and how Contact/Symplectic Topology can help to understand these smooth gadgets and vice versa.
Current Graduate Students
| Student | Started PhD at UGA | Advisor |
| Alex Tepper | 2018 | David Gay |
| Han Lou | 2019 | Michael Usher |
| Ye Tian | 2020 | David Gay |
| Gary Dunkerly | 2021 | Akram Alishahi |
| Isnayni Hadi | 2022 | David Gay |
| Connor Novak | 2023 | Akram Alishahi |
Former Graduate Students
| Student | Graduated | Advisor | First Job after Graduating |
| Nickolas Castro | 2016 | David Gay | UC Davis, Postdoc |
| Jason Joseph | 2020 | David Gay | Rice University, Postdoc |
| William Olsen | 2020 | David Gay | U of Virginia, Postdoc |
| Swapnanil Banerjee | 2023 | David Gay | Industry |
| Devashi Gulati | 2024 | Peter Lambert-Cole | Industry |
| Daniel Hartman | 2024 | David Gay | Max Planck Institute, Bonn, Postdoc |
| Geunyoung Kim | 2024 | David Gay | McMasters University, Posdtoc |
| Terrin Warren | 2024 | David Gay | California Polytechnic, Postdoc |