Recent Rice Ph.D.'s in Mathematics

(Alumni/ae, please e-mail corrections and updates to hausman@rice.edu.)

The Department also maintains a more complete list of our graduate alumni.
 

Year of Ph.D.:

Graduate  Previous degrees
Thesis Title
Positions after graduation

(Note: to help protect privacy, some positions after graduation are not listed.)

2008:

Landan Jennings, B.A. Rice University
Sufficient Conditions for Hamiltonian Paths

Jamie Jorgensen B.S. Mathematics Utah State University, B.S. Physics Utah State University
Surface Homeomorphisms that do not Extend to Any Handlebody and the Johnson Filtration
Applied Research Mathematician, Department of Defense

David Ralston B.A. Mathematics Yale University, B.A. Music Yale University
Heaviness: An Extension of a Lemma of Yuval Peres
Ross Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Ohio

Matthew Simpson B.A. Haverford College
On Log Canonical Models of the Moduli Space of Stable Pointed Genus Zero Curves
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Assistant Professor of Mathematics

2007:

Jer-Chin (Luke) Chuang B.S. Furman University
Transgressive Chains, Harmonic Cycles, and Subdivisions
Duke University, Assistant Professor

Amanda Knecht B.S. Texas Christian University
Weak Approximation for Degree Two del Pezzo Surfaces at Places of Bad Reduction
RTG Assistant Professor, University of Michigan

Eric Samansky B.S. Haverford College
Convergence of Gibbs Measures and the Behavior of Shrinking Tubular Neighborhoods of Fractals and Algebraic Sets.
Ross Assistant Professor, Ohio State University

Soomin Kim B.S. Korea University
Limits of Minimal Surfaces with Increasing Genus
Visiting Assistant Professor, Purdue University
Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins University, Fall 2008

Wei Zhu B.S. University of Science and Technology, China
Minimizing and flow problems for multiple-valued functions and maps.
Postdoctoral position at ETH Zurich, webpage
Assistant Professor, University of Notre Dame, Fall 2008

2006:

James Peterson
Coordinate Scans, Compactness Properties, and Area Minimization.
Assistant Professor, Benedictine College, Kansas

Yue Wu
Applications of Rauzy Induction on the Generic Ergodic Theory of Exchange Transformations. Financial Analyst, TPR Associates, The Woodlands, TX.

2005:

Zheng Meng B.S., M.S. Shanghai University
Geometric Variational Problems with Cross-sectional Constraints
Junior Seismic Imaging Geophysicist, Veritas DGC, Houston

Aaron Trout 
Spaces with Positive Combinatorial Curvature 

Jun Zhang 
Geometric Compactification of Moduli Space of Cubic Surfaces and Kirwan Blowups
Medical statistician, University of Chicago

2004:

Carol Gwosdz-Gee  B.S. University of Dallas
Strong S-equivalence of Ordered Links
Visiting Research Assistant Professor, UC Davis
Assistant Professor, St. Edward's University, Austin, TX

Aaron Heap  B.S. Texas Christian University
Bordism Invariants of the Mapping Class Group
Assistant Professor, University of Rochester

Connie Leidy  B.S. Tulane University
Higher-Order Lingking Forms
Rademacher Instructor, University of Pennsylvania
Assistant Professor, Wesleyan University

2003:

Christopher Earles  B.S., M.S. Idaho State University
Partial Umbilics of Hypersurfaces and Repeated Eigenvalue Currents
Assistant Professor, Bethel College

Zheng Huang  B.S., M.S. University of Sci & Tech of China
Harmonic Maps and the Geometry of Teichmuller Space
Assistant Professor CUNY, Staten Island, NY

Robert Huff  B.S. Harding University
Flat Structures, Soap Films, and Capillary Surfaces
Assistant Professor, Trinity University, Hartford, CT

Tatiana Marinenko  Diploma, Summa Cum Laude, Herzen Russian Pedagogical University
High Distance Pittings of 3-manifolds
Assistant Professor, University of Auckland

2002:

Scott Berger   B.S. Princeton University
Edge Length Minimizing Polyhedra
Consultant, Houston, TX

Shelly Harvey  B.S. California Polytechnic State University -- San Luis Obispo
Higher-Order Polynomial Invariants of 3-Manifolds Giving Lower Bounds for the Thurston Norm
Assistant Professor, Rice University

Simon Morgan  B.A., NST, Diplom. King's College, Cambridge University
Minimizers in Polyhedral Spaces
Postdoctoral Fellow, Los Alamos National Laboratories
Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota

Qinglan Xia  B.S. Anhui Normal University, M.S. University of Science and Technology of China
Variational Problems in Intersection Homology Theory and Optimal Transport
Assistant Professor, University of California at Davis

2001:

Amy Bellis  B.A. College of Wooster
Using Complexity Bounds to Study Positive Heegaard Diagrams of Genus Two

Gregory Clark  B.S. Brown University, M.S. Texas A&M University
Stable Homotopy Invariance of Teichner's sec Invariant
Instructor, Rice University
National Security Agency

Katherine Crowley  B.A. St. Olaf College
Discrete Morse Theory and the Geometry of Nonpositively Curved Simplicial Complexes
Assistant Professor, St. Olaf College
Assistant Professor, Washington and Lee University

Amy Lampazzi  B.S. University of Missouri, M.S. University of Houston
Divisibility of the Conway Polynomial of Links
Lecturer, University of Houston - Clear Lake

Chun-Chi Lin  B.S., M.S. National Taiwan University
Variational Problems with Multiple-Valued Functions and Mappings
Postdoctoral Fellow, Max Planck Institute, Leipzig
Associate Professor, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei,
Taiwan

2000:

Sanford Ganzell  B.A. Dartmouth College
Complexity of Exotic R4's
Assistant Professor, Pomona College
Assistant Professor, St. Mary's College of Maryland

Yuan Wang  B.S. Peking University
Mathematical Modeling of Seismic Data: Multiscale Noise Removal and Recognition Algorithm
Siebel Systems, Software Engineer

1999:

David Handron  B.A., M.S. Dartmouth
Generalized Billiard Paths and Morse Theory for Manifolds with Corners
Instructor, Carnegie Mellon University

D. Paul Phillips B.A. Rice University
Inverse Spectral Problems with Incomplete Knowledge of the Spectrum
Associate Professor, University of Dallas

Lorette Stone  B.A. University of California at Berkeley,
M. A. State University of New York at Stony Brook
Costa Cousins

1998:

Nancy Cunningham  B.S. Yale
A Variational Approach to the Local Uniqueness of Immersed Minimal Surfaces in R3
Cambridge Strategic Management Group

Ashley Ledbetter  B.S. Wellesley College
Energy Minimizers, Gradient Flow Solutions, and a Computational Investigation in the Theory of Biharmonic Maps
Principal, MPM Capital

Christopher Hawkins B.S. Boston College
A Minimization of a Curvature Functional on Fiber Bundles
Financial Industry, New York City

Hope McIlwain B.S. Furman University
Can You Hear the Size of Vertices? An Inverse Spectral Problem of Laplacians on Weighted Graphs
Assistant Professor, Mercer University

1997:

Igor Prokhorenkov  B.S. Moscow State University
Morse-Bott Functions and the Witten Laplacian
Postdoctoral Fellow, MSRI, Assistant Professor, Texas Christian University

Paul Uhlig B.S. St. Mary's University
Extremal Eigenvalue Problems for Quasidisks and Chord-Arc Domains
Assistant Professor, St. Mary's University
 

1996:

Paul Bellis  B.S., College of Wooster
Realization of Homology Boundary Links

Amir Gerges  B.S. New College
Surgery, bordism, and Equivalence in 3-manifolds
Analyst, Trilogy Corp., Houston

Simrat Ghuman  B.A. San Francisco State University
Invariants of Graphs

Jun Tian  B.S. Peking University
The Mathematical Theory and Applications of Biorthogonal Coiffman Wavelet Systems
Research/Development Engineer, Digimare Corp.

Clayton Ward  B.S. U.Texas, Austin
Fuchsian Groups and Polygonal Billiards
National Security Agency

Changyou Wang  B.S. Peking Normal, M.S. Academy Sinica
Regularity of Minimizing Maps and Flows for Various Functionals and Targets
Professor, University of Kentucky

Updated April 30, 2008