Mentoring
Letters of recommendation
If you are asking me for a letter of recommendation, please do the
following:
- Include the earliest deadline in your request.
Note that I can
only guarantee being able to write for you with at least 1 month of
notice if this is a first time letter, and 1 week of notice if I
have already written for you before. You should ask even if you are
late.
If
there is no clear deadline, make one up for me.
- Remind me regularly of the deadline.
- Consider this
advice.
Undergraduate research
Undergraduate research projects I've led include:
- Winter 2020: With Giuseppe Martone, I co-supervised the
LoG(M) project, entropy degeneration of ideal projective
pants. Grad mentor: Mitul Islam. Undergraduate
researchers: Marianne DeBrito, Andrew Nguyen, and Marisa O'Gara.
Submitted for publication (DeBrito, Nguyen, O'Gara)
[gitlab]
[team photo]
- Fall 2019: I supervised the LoG(M) project, growth
rates of tent maps. Grad mentor: Yiwang Chen.
Undergraduate researchers: Robert Buckley, Grace O'Brien, and Zoe
Zhou.
Submitted for publication (Buckley, Chen, O'Brien, Zhou)
[gitlab]
[team photo]
- Fall 2018: I supervised the LoG(M) project,
modeling convex projective geometries
Grad mentors: Samantha Pinella and Robert Walker
Undergrad researchers: Rudreshwaran Ranganathan, Steven
Schaefer, and Hanissa Shamsuddin
[final poster]
[team photo]
- Summer 2017: I mentored Jennifer
Jones at the Michigan REU program. Jenny
collaborated with REU student Adam Holeman,
who was mentored by my fellow postdoc Caleb
Ashley.
Jenny and Adam's REU write-up: Random
Walks on the Fundamental Group of the Once Punctured Torus.
Other
I am not a formal advisor of these students, but I enjoyed
talking with Mitul Islam, Samantha Pinella, and
Feng Zhu during the overlap of their time as graduate students and my
time as a postdoc at the University of Michigan.
The Lab of Geometry at Michigan
I was the director of the Lab of Geometry at Michigan -
LoG(M) from summer 2017 to spring 2020.
LoG(M) is an undergraduate math research program. It is part of the
Geometry Labs United network.
The lab runs 3-4 projects per semester with emphasis on computation
and visualization as media for engaging undergraduates in modern
mathematical research. Each project is led by 1-2 faculty supervisors
with assistance from 1-2 graduate student mentors, and 3-4
undergraduate researchers.
My role as director of LoG(M) included the following:
- recruiting and supporting project mentors
- recruiting and mentoring qualified undergraduate researchers
- developing students' computing and communication skills
- providing feedback to students on written material
- leading projects
