Current information

I am an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Carleton College, supported by the National Science Foundation’s LEAPS fellowship, and am Deputy Editor of MAA FOCUS. This Fall, I am teaching:

Calculus II


Scholarly background

I study resolvent problems and arithmetic topology. My interests include history and illustration: I like to think about how and why we do math—in relation to institutions, political conflict, and social movements—towards sustainable mathematical futures. I am a member of the ’23 Green NExT cohort. Before Carleton, I was a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow with Jesse Wolfson and Nathan Kaplan. I did my Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, advised by Benson Farb and supported in part by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. I also studied Math, Physics, and Computer Science at New Mexico Tech.

Curriculum Vitae

Personal background

I love the Twin Cities, though parts of my heart will always reside in Albuquerque and Chicago. I am also a labor organizer, starting with Graduate Students United in 2016. Since then, I’ve worked with National Nurses United, the Chicago Teachers Union, and the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America. In my spare time, I like to write, hack, exercise, play Dungeons & Dragons, and spend time with my partner and our Cat. I’ve GM-ed at ConFluence: Futures in Color both years it has run, and met some really wonderful people there—keep an eye out for next time!

Photos of Me Photos of Catu

What I’m reading

These are things I’m finding meaningful:

Topology of varieties

  • “Essential dimension relative to branched covers of degree at most \(n\),” Farb and Wolfson (2025).
  • “Stratified braid groups: monodromy,” Salter (2025).
  • “Monodromy in the space of symmetric cubic surfaces with a line,” Brazelton and Raman (2024).

More math

  • “A Computer Vision Problem in Flatland,” Agarwal et al. (2026).
  • “Classical Optics for Charged Black Holes,” Trettel (2025).
  • “Ray-marching Thurston geometries,” Coulon et al. (2022).

History, sociology, and anthropology

  • “Shaping the Future of Mathematics in the Age of AI” Commelin et al. (2026).
  • “Felix Klein’s teaching of Galois theory,” Heller (2023).
  • Framing Global Mathematics, Schappacher (2022).
  • Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University, Clark (2006).

Fiction

  • Babel, R.F. Kuang.
  • The Player of Games, Iain Banks.
  • System Collapse, Martha Wells.
Agarwal, Sameer, Erin Connelly, Annalisa Crannell, Timothy Duff, and Rekha R. Thomas. 2026. “A Computer Vision Problem in Flatland.” SIAM Journal on Applied Algebra and Geometry 10 (1): 14–45. doi:10.1137/25M1727552.
Brazelton, Thomas, and Sidhanth Raman. 2024. “Monodromy in the Space of Symmetric Cubic Surfaces with a Line.” arXiv Preprint arXiv:2410.09270. doi:10.48550/arXiv.2410.09270.
Clark, William. 2006. Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226109237.001.0001.
Commelin, Johan, Mateja Jamnik, Rodrigo Ochigame, Lenny Taelman, and Akshay Venkatesh. 2026. “Shaping the Future of Mathematics in the Age of AI.” Notices of the American Mathematical Society 73 (6): 480–83.
Coulon, Rémi, Elisabetta A. Matsumoto, Henry Segerman, and Steve J. Trettel. 2022. “Ray-Marching Thurston Geometries.” Experimental Mathematics 31 (4): 1197–277. doi:10.1080/10586458.2022.2030262.
Farb, Benson, and Jesse Wolfson. 2025. “Essential Dimension Relative to Branched Covers of Degree at Most \(n\).” doi:10.48550/arXiv.2510.22786.
Heller, Henning. 2023. “Felix Klein’s Teaching of Galois Theory.” Historia Mathematica 63: 21–46.
Salter, Nick. 2025. “Stratified Braid Groups: Monodromy.” In Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 178:259–92. 2. Cambridge University Press.
Schappacher, Norbert. 2022. Framing Global Mathematics: The International Mathematical Union Between Theorems and Politics. Cham: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-95683-7.
Trettel, Steve. 2025. “Classical Optics for Charged Black Holes.” doi:10.48550/arXiv.2505.04633.