Rice Univeristy Department of Mathematics

Welcome!

Thanks for visiting my webpage. This webpage is intended to serve many groups of people. If you are a student in a course that I am teaching or TA'ing, please follow the "Teaching" link at the left. If you are interested in geometric group theory, please follow the "Research" link on the left to a cache of helpful links. Finally, if you are a potential employer, please visit all of the links to learn a little more about me.

This is me at the Great Wall of China. My right knee is bandaged because I was supposed to be on crutches. Unfortunately, I was not doing math on this day.

Contact Information

Mailing Address
Dept of Mathematics MS 136
6100 South Main Street
Houston, Texas 77005-1872
Office Herman Brown, 48
Fax 713.348.5231
Phone 713.348.2786
Email pershell@math.rice.edu

Current Status

I am a Ph.D. candidate at Rice University in Houston, working under the direction of the fanatastic (and endlessly patient) John Hempel. I am currently working in small cancellation and geometric group theory, interested in measuring the complexity of a group presentation based on the solvability of the word problem.

I received my MA from Rice in January 2007. I graduated from the University of Tennessee at Martin in May of 2003 Summa Cum Laude, with a Bachelor of Science in mathematics, and a minor in physics.