News

We welcome a bumper cohort of postdocs to the Centre for Combinatorics, Algebra and Number Theory this year. For this post, we asked them to introduce themselves and say a bit about their mathematical journey to QMUL and what they will be getting up to during their time here.

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Himanshi Chanana

Hello, I am Himanshi Chanana, a postdoctoral researcher in mathematics at QMUL. I am originally from India and recently completed my PhD at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, where I worked under the supervision of Prof. Saurabh Kumar Singh. My research lies in analytic number theory, an area of mathematics that seeks to understand deep questions about prime numbers. A famous example is the Riemann Hypothesis, which predicts hidden patterns in the distribution of primes. While my work does not directly address this problem, it contributes to the broader picture by studying automorphic forms and L-functions — central objects that are closely connected to many important questions in number theory.

At QMUL, I am working on the project titled "Moments of Higher Rank L-functions" under the guidance of Subhajit Jana. Roughly speaking, this involves studying the average behaviour of L-functions. This often reveals surprising arithmetic insights connected with major conjectures such as the Generalized Lindelöf Hypothesis and subconvexity bounds. Right now, I am particularly focused on studying automorphic forms from a representation-theoretic viewpoint. I am excited to learn new techniques, explore different perspectives, and collaborate with others in this area.

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Patience Ablett

Hi! I'm Patience, and I work in combinatorial algebraic geometry. During my PhD I got hooked on toric varieties, a special class of algebraic varieties whose geometry can be understood via combinatorics. During my time at QMUL I'll be continuing my work in this area with Alex Fink, as well as branching out into some matroid theory.

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Dante Luber

I got my PhD from TU Berlin under the supervision of Professor Michael Joswig. Prior to that, I got a Bachelor's degree in Economics and a Masters degree in Pure Maths, both from San Francisco State University. Both my PhD and Masters theses focused on the interactions between algebraic geometry and combinatorics. Pretty much all of my research since my PhD has involved gadgets known as matroids, which combinatorially abstract the kind of independence systems we see in linear algebra or graph theory. A large part of what I do involves software systems such as polymake and OSCAR.

The project I am working on at QMUL with Alex Fink involves generalizations of matroids known as Coxeter matroids. For usual matroids, the beta invariant is a number which captures important properties of the matroid. This is a well-studies invariant and lots of work has been done finding various ways to compute it. One branch of my work here involves extending these types of computations to the setting of Coxeter matroids. I'm excited about this project because it ties into other areas of my work, such as valuated matroid theory. I also get to learn more about things like generalized flag varieties and K-theory. I'm curious to see if the numbers we our computations reveal new information about a Coxeter matroid, or tie Coxeter matroid theory to other areas of mathematics in a meaningful way.

My academic experience was not straightforward. During my undergrad I majored first in Sociology, then Economics with a minor in Marketing. My first real exposure to Mathematics was from those courses required for an Economics degree, leading me to change my minor to mathematics. I went on to learn more advanced topics and gain research experience through the Masters program, following which I made the decision to pursue a PhD.

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Miriam Norris

I am a representation theorist whose work lies in the intersection between algebra and number theory. After completing an undergraduate degree at the University of Edinburgh I joined the London School of Geometry and Number Theory. I graduated from Kings College London with a PhD in 2022 under the supervision of Prof Fred Diamond and Prof Martin Liebeck. Since then, I have been a research fellow at the University of Manchester and now QMUL where I will be working with Shu Sasaki.

I am interested in representations of algebraic, p-adic and related finite groups. Specifically, I am interested in the aspects of representation theory involved in the Langlands programme. This programme aims to bridge two distinct areas of maths, harmonic analysis (automorphic forms) and number theory (Galois representations). The discovery of such `bridges' has proved extremely valuable with a notable example being part of Andrew Wiles' proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.

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Robin Bartlett

I recently moved from Glasgow to take up an MSCA fellowship at QMUL where I will be working with Shu Sasaki. My academic work sits at the interface of representation theory and geometry: I study how representation-theoretic patterns can be realised inside geometric objects that arise in the Langlands program. In this project I'm particularly excited to explore new connections to geometric representation theory, and am looking forward to collaborating across the group. Outside of mathematics I enjoy painting and reading, which helps me take a step away from research and return to problems with a fresh viewpoint.

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We wish all of the new postdocs an extremely productive and enjoyable time at Queen Mary, and look forward to being part of the next steps in their mathematical careers!

You can find more about them and their work on their websites:

• Himanshi Chanana
• Patience Ablett
• Dante Luber
• Robin Bartlett