Patricia Hersh's Home Page

Patricia Hersh
Department of Mathematics
University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403

Email: plhersh at uoregon dot edu
Office Phone: 541-346-0968
Office location: 317 Fenton Hall

Welcome to my home page. I am a professor in the math department at the University of Oregon. Before this, I was a professor at North Carolina State University and prior to that an assistant professor (and promoted to associate professor) at Indiana University-Bloomington, a postdoc at MSRI (fall 2004), Michigan (2001-2004) and the University of Washington (1999-2001), went to grad school at MIT (1995-1999), and undergrad at Harvard (1991-1995). I spent fall 2010 visiting Cornell thanks to the very generous support of the Ruth Michler Prize of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM). Richard Stanley was my Ph.D. advisor, and Phil Hanlon was my NSF postdoc sponsoring scientist at Michigan; Persi Diaconis was my undergraduate advisor.

Research:

Here are my publications, talk slides and upcoming talks/conferences, and my CV. This work is supported by NSF grant DMS-1953931.

Research interests: combinatorics, particularly as it relates to fields like topology, commutative algebra, representation theory and theoretical computer science. I'm especially interested in combinatorial methods for studying topological structure, often with algebraic applications in mind.

Past Ph.D. students: Stephen Lacina, University of Oregon, June 2023 Ph.D., first position at Furman University. Chetak Hossan, NCSU, December 2019 Ph.D. (with coadvisor Nathan Reading), lecturer at Texas State University. Grace Stadnyk, NCSU, August 2019 Ph.D., tenure track assistant professor at Furman University. Molly Lynch, NCSU, June 2019 Ph.D., tenure track assistant professor at Hollins University. Ruth Davidson, NCSU 2014 Ph.D. (with coadvisor Seth Sullivant), first position NSF postdoctoral research fellow at UIUC. Rebecca Swanson, Indiana University-Bloomington 2010 Ph.D., teaching professor at Colorado School of Mines.

Editorial boards and advisory boards: Forum of Mathematics PI (editorial board, March 2019--present); Forum of Mathematics SIGMA (editorial board, March 2019--present); Springer Graduate Texts in Mathematics (managing editor, January 2023--present; advisory board member, April 2019--present), Proceedings of the AMS (combinatorics editor, February 2014--January 2022) and SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics (editorial board, January 2011--December 2016).

Some helpful organizations: NSF, AMS, AWM, MAA and SIAM.

Teaching:

Winter 2024 quarter:

Math 456/556 -- Networks and combinatorics (MWF 1-2pm in Peterson 103). Textbook: Introductory Combinatorics, 5th edition, by Richard A. Brualdi.
Math 432/532 -- Introduction to Topology II (MWF 2-3pm in Peterson 103). Textbook: Topology, 2nd edition, by James Munkres.

Winter 2023 quarter:

Math 445/545 -- Introduction to Abstract Algebra II (MWF 2-3pm in Friendly Hall 214). Textbook: Algebra, 2nd edition, by Michael Artin.

Fall 2022 quarter:

Math 341 -- Elementary Linear Algebra (MTWF 1-2pm in University Hall 303); textbook Linear Algebra and its Applications, fifth edition, by David C. Lay, Steven R. Lay and Judi J. McDonald.
Math 444/544 -- Introduction to Abstract Algebra I (MWF 2-3pm in Friendly Hall 225); textbook Algebra, second edition, by Michael Artin.

Spring 2022 quarter:

Math 607 -- Combinatorics of Coxeter Groups (MWF 2-3pm in Tykeson Hall 240); textbook Combinatorics of Coxeter Groups, by Anders Bjoerner and Francesco Brenti.

Previous quarters and semesters:

Information for classes taught in previous quarters/semesters

Seminar and conference organizing:

Currently coorganizing:

Cascade Lectures in Combinatorics (CALICO).

Recently organized/coorganized:

University of Oregon Math Department Colloquium.
Triangle Lectures in Combinatorics (TLC), series of combinatorial workshops. Served on the TLC Steering Committee with Ricky Liu (NCSU), Ezra Miller (Duke), Gabor Pataki (UNC Chapel Hill), and Cynthia Vinzant (NCSU).
MSRI Workshop on Geometric and Topological Combinatorics: Modern Techniques and Methods, Berkeley, CA, October 9-13, 2017. Coorganized with Vic Reiner (U. Minnesota), Bernd Sturmfels (UC Berkeley), Frank Vallentin (U. Köln) and Günter Ziegler (Freie U. Berlin).
AMS special session on representation stability and its applications, Bloomington, IN, April 1-2, 2017. Coorganized with Jeremy Miller (Purdue) and Andrew Putman (Notre Dame).
70th birthday conference for Richard Stanley at MIT (Cambridge, MA), June 23-27, 2014. Coorganized with Karen Collins (Wesleyan), Caroline Klivans (Brown), and Alex Postnikov (MIT).
AMS Committee on the Profession panel discussion on "Online courses: benefits and pitfalls". Coorganized with Dan Abramovich (Brown), held at the Joint Math Meetings, Baltimore, MD, January 15-18, 2014.
AMS special session on algebraic combinatorics, Oxford, MS, March 1-3, 2013. Coorganized with Dennis Stanton (U. Minnesota).
AMS Committee on the Profession panel discussion on "Getting Started as a Research Mathematician", held at the Joint Math Meetings, San Diego, CA, January 9-12, 2013.
AWM Schafer minisymposium in memory of Alice T. Schafer, AMS/MAA/SIAM/AWM joint meetings, New Orleans, Jan. 6-9, 2011. Five talks and a panel discussion on ``Getting Started as a Research Mathematician'', by Schafer prize winners. Coorganized with Sami Assaf (MIT then, USC now) and Cheryl Grood (Swarthmore).

Older events previously organized/coorganized:

Web pages for events, conferences, and seminars previously organized.