Ritt Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Columbia University

Ph.D in Mathematics, DPMMS, Cambridge University, 2006.
M.S. in Physics, UCR, 2003
B.S. in Mathematics, UCR, 2002

Research

I am interested in topological quantum field theory, low-dimensional topology, higher-dimensional category theory, and mathematical physics. Right now I am most interested in knot homologies and the categorification of quantum groups.

I have also worked on the following topics:

• Open-closed Topological Quantum Field Theories and their application to Khovanov homology with Hendryk Pfeiffer
• 2-groups and higher gauge theory with John Baez
• Frobenius algebras, adjunctions, and planar TQFT
• n-Categories with Eugenia Cheng (see our book in progress Higher-Dimensional Categories: an illustrated guide book)

Talks

For a list of talks that I have given click here.

X-Y Pic tutorial

My mathematical papers tend to have lots of diagrams. I draw many of the diagrams in my papers using XY-pic. I have a tutorial that explains how I use XY-pic to make braids, cobordism, string diagrams, and many other diagrams. The format I use is less traditional than the format presented in the xy reference manual, but I hope that it is more intuitive.

Contact Details

For my contact details look for me on the Columbia faculty page. Or you can send me an email at lauda@math.columbia.edu