Virginia Tech® home

Algebra, Algebraic Geometry & Combinatorics

Mathematicians use algebra to represent symmetries and other patterns and to perform calculations that reveal geometric and other structures.

Algebra research in the department includes programs involving combinatorics, representation theory, Lie theory, algebraic geometry,
group theory, coding theory, and cryptography.

picture of a Julia set, in the complex plane

Research Advisors for Algebra, Algebraic Geometry & Combinatorics

  • Bio Item
    Sarah Arpin , bio

    Dr. Arpin's research is in algebraic number theory and post-quantum cryptography, including the study of supersingular elliptic curves, isogeny-based cryptography, arithmetic geometry in characteristic p, and code-based cryptography.

  • Bio Item
    Giuseppe Cotardo , bio

    Dr. Cotardo’s research interest is in algebraic coding theory, with a particular focus on algebra, geometry, combinatorics, and their applications to the invariant theory of rank-metric codes. He is also actively working on network communication and quantum error correction.

  • Bio Item
    Daniel Douglas , bio

    Dr. Douglas works in the mathematical field of quantum topology. He is particularly interested in interactions with low dimensional geometry and topology, representation theory, combinatorics, and mathematical physics.

  • Bio Item
    Leo Herr , bio

    My work is in algebraic geometry. I study varieties using extra combinatorial data called logarithmic structures which enrich and compactify ordinary varieties as a middleman between schemes and tropical geometry. Log structures help to count curves, study intersections, and construct cohomology theories and invariants that behave well for singular varieties and normal crossings pairs.

  • Bio Item
    Jason LeGrow , bio

    Professor LeGrow's research is in the design, analysis, and optimization of isogeny-based cryptographic protocols.

  • Bio Item
    Nick Loehr , bio

    Professor Loehr conducts research in algebraic combinatorics. His work focuses on the combinatorics of symmetric functions, quasisymmetric functions, lattice paths, and tableau-like structures. These objects encode remarkable algebraic information about group representations, polynomial invariants, and Lie algebras.

  • Bio Item
    Hiram López Valdez , bio

    Professor López researches connections of commutative algebra with coding theory and its applications, including quantum error correction, coding for post-quantum cryptography, and distributed storage systems.

  • Bio Item
    Gretchen Matthews , bio

    Professor Matthews' research is in applications of algebraic geometry to data storage, protection, and security, especially coding theory and cryptography.

  • Bio Item
    Leonardo Mihalcea , bio

    Associate Professor Mihalcea studies classical and quantum intersection rings for flag manifolds and related algebraic varieties, an area combining techniques from Algebraic Geometry, Combinatorics, and Geometric Representation Theory.

  • Bio Item
    Travis Morrison , bio

    Professor Morrison's research is in algorithmic number theory and applications to cryptography.

  • Bio Item
    Daniel Orr , bio

    Daniel Orr conducts research in representation theory and algebraic combinatorics.

  • Bio Item
    Eyvindur Ari Palsson , bio

    Associate Professor Palsson conducts research in harmonic analysis, geometric measure theory, combinatorics, number theory and partial differential equations.

  • Bio Item
    Mark Shimozono , bio

    Professor Shimozono works on combinatorial problems arising in enumerative algebraic geometry and representation theory.

  • Bio Item
    Wenbo Sun , bio

    Assistant Professor Wenbo Sun works on the problems lying at the interaction of ergodic theory, combinatorics, and number theory.

Researchers of Algebra, Algebraic Geometry & Combinatorics

  • Bio Item
    Eduardo Camps Moreno , bio

    Dr. Camps Moreno is a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow working with Dr. Gretchen Matthews, with a research focus in algebraic coding theory.

  • Bio Item
    Spencer Carey Cvitanov , bio

    Dr. Cvitanov's PHD is in Number theory, specifically Iwasawa Theory. Much of his work is concerned with non-Archimedean linear algebra.

  • Bio Item
    Garrett Fowler , bio

    Garrett Fowler's mathematical interests lay largely in combinatorics and algebra.

  • Bio Item
    Irit Huq-Kuruvilla , bio

    Dr. Huq-Kuruvilla is a postdoctoral scholar working on Gromov-Witten theory and related areas, with a particular focus on quantum K-theory and its relationship with the geometry of the Kontsevich moduli spaces of stable maps.

  • Bio Item
    Kelli Karcher , bio

    Advanced Instructor Karcher conducts research in orderable group theory, studying the cardinality of a variety of solvable groups.

  • Bio Item
    Daniel Kim , bio

    Dr. Kim is an instructor with research interests in symbolic dynamics and geometry.

  • Bio Item
    Palanivel Manoharan , bio

    Research interest in Geometry of Manifolds and geometry of quantum states.

  • Bio Item
    Zitong Pei , bio

    As an instructor, I incorporate inclusive teaching practices to create a classroom environment where all students feel valued and included. Simultaneously, my research interests encompass a diverse range of topics in algebraic number theory and algebraic geometry.

  • Bio Item
    Michael T. Schultz , bio

    Dr. Schultz conducts research in the intersection of algebraic geometry and mathematical physics.

  • Bio Item
    Timothy Smits , bio

    I have broad research interests in number theory and arithmetic geometry. I'm interested in the arithmetic of modular symbols and Massey products, Iwasawa theory, and arithmetic statistics.

  • Bio Item
    Eric Ufferman , bio

    Collegiate Assistant Professor Ufferman teaches classes in both Computational Modeling and Data Analytics and Discrete Mathematics.

  • Bio Item
    Daniel Valvo , bio

    Instructor Valvo's research is an exciting field of math called coding theory. Specifically he studies how to store data in ways that it can repair itself in the event of errors.

  • Bio Item
    Milo Bechtloff Weising , bio

    Dr. Bechtloff Weising is a postdoctoral associate working in algebraic combinatorics and representation theory with a primary focus on Macdonald polynomials and Hecke algebras.

Recently Retired Faculty