Marc Masdeu

Curricum Vitae

Work

As of September 2010 I am working at Columbia University as a Ritt Assistant Professor.

Graduate Education

I started the doctoral program in University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC) in August 2005. I took a decent number of good courses, and met really interesting people. It is a great place to be, if you don't mind the weather they have.

Believe it or not, there is certain areas in Mathematics that are not quite represented in that department, and this is why I transferred to McGill University, where I would eventually write my thesis. So in August 2007 I moved to Montreal, an amazing city where I learned a lot of math, some french, and that the weather can always get worse.

In May 2010 I passed my oral defense, and in July 8, 2010 my first kid was born. This is not really academically relevant, but it is the most remarkable thing in which I have ever participated, so I felt it should go here.

Undergraduate Education

The year I had to start my college studies, the UPC came with a new studies program. The deal consisted in taking two degrees at the same time: Mathematics and Telecommunication Engineering. The important feature was that all the paper-work involved in the process of assimilating courses between the two degrees wasn't necessary anymore. Also, a predesigned plan ensured the ease of schedule design.

After the success of this first idea, a new centre was created, under the name of CFIS. It currently offers other combinations of engineering and Mathematics. More information can be found on their homepage.

Are you looking for the information on the REU on Elliptic Curves and Pairing-based Cryptography? Go to the Wiki page.

Latest News

• (04/18/2013) I discovered knowls today, and added abstracts to my research papers using them.
• (01/23/2013) Today classes start at Columbia. This semester I am teaching Linear Algebra.
• (10/28/2012) Finally I found a picture to put in the “About” section. The CV there is also updated.
• (9/29/2012) I have just updated the page to use CSS. Not really a 2.0 experience, but definitely less 20-century-ish.

The best way to contact me is by email:

You can physically reach me at:

Mathematics Department - Columbia University

Room 415, MC 4441
2990 Broadway
New York, NY 10027

Phone: 212-854-4354
Fax: 212-854-8962

If you decide to print any of these, consider doing so double-sided, and maybe with two (or four, depending on your sight) sheets per page. You can use the psutils (in particular, psnup or pstops). If you want an improved version of psnup, feel free to use this Perl script that I tweaked from somebody else: psnup2.pl.

Papers and preprints

7. Elementary matrix decomposition and the computation of Darmon points with higher conductor (with X. Guitart). Submitted.
6. Computing fundamental domains for the Bruhat-Tits tree for GL_2(Qp), p-adic automorphic forms, and the canonical embedding of Shimura curves (with C. Franc). Submitted.
5. Computation of ATR Darmon points on non-geometrically modular elliptic curves (with X.Guitart). Experimental Mathematics (2013), volume 22, issue 1, pp 85-98.
4. Continued fractions in 2-stage euclidean quadratic fields (with X. Guitart). Mathematics of Computation (2013), volume 82, issue 282, pp. 1223-1233.
3. CM cycles on Shimura curves, and p-adic L-functions. Compositio Mathematica (2012), volume 148, issue 04, pp. 1003-1032.
2. Bezout domains and elliptic curves. Comm. Algebra 36 (2008), no. 12, 4492-4499 (with I. Goldbring)
1. A note on dihedral polynomials of prime degree. Indian J. Pure Appl. Math. 36 (2005), no. 6, 295-300. (with J.-C. Lario)

Expository notes and slides

• Talk at MEGA (June 2013) (Slides (PDF))(Slides-handout(PDF)).
• Talk at Sage Days 44 (January 2013) (Slides (PDF)).
• Notes on Abel-Jacobi maps (TeXed Lecture Notes (PDF)).
• Notes on Grothendieck topologies (TeXed Lecture Notes (PDF)).
• Notes for the Graduate Student seminar organized by Prof. Darmon.
• Serre's p-adic modular forms: (A summary of Serre's Antwerp paper, featuring all his results and most of the definitions).
• Coleman's theory of p-adic integrals: (Notes on a paper).

Lecture Notes

• mod-p Langlands (R.Olivier) (Scanned (PDF))
• p-adic Integration (A.Iovita) (TeXed Lecture Notes (PDF)) (jointly with Cameron Franc)
• p-adic Hodge Theory (B.Cais) (Lecture Notes (PDF))
• Geometric Modular forms (A.Iovita) (TeXed Lecture Notes (PDF)).
• Etale Cohomology (A.Iovita) (TeXed Lecture Notes (PDF)) (jointly with Cameron Franc)
• Modular Forms (H.Darmon): (Lecture Notes (PDF)) Check out also Cameron Franc's webpage for TeXed notes (in progress).
• Algebraic Geometry (A.Iovita)(TeXed Lecture Notes (PDF))
• Modular Forms (E.Goren) (Lecture Notes (PDF))
• Representation Theory (A.Malkin) (Lecture Notes (PDF))
• Diophantine Approximation (C.Haesemeyer) (Lecture Notes (PDF))
• Modular Forms (S.Ahlgren) (Lecture Notes (PDF))
• Class Field Theory (S.Ullom) (Lecture Notes (PDF))
• Analytic Number Theory (K.Ford) (Lecture Notes (PDF))
• Riemann Surfaces and Algebraic Curves (S.Bradlow) (Lecture Notes (PDF))
• Arithmetic of Curves (H.Darmon) (Lecture Notes (PDF))
• Group Theory (D.Robinson)(Lecture Notes (PDF))
• Algebraic Number Theory (S.Ahlgren) (Lecture Notes (PDF))
• Abstract Algebra II (M.Bergvelt) (Lecture Notes (PDF))
• Commutative Algebra (C.Rezk) (Lecture Notes (PDF))
• Elliptic Curves (I.Duursma) (Lecture Notes (PDF))
• Rational Points on Curves (B.Poonen) (Lecture Notes (PDF))
• Algorithms for Finite Fields (H.Lenstra) (Lecture Notes (PDF))
• Series de Dirichlet (D.Zagier) (Lecture Notes (PDF) in Catalan)
• Sobre la Mitjana Aritmetico-Geometrica (J-F.Mestre) (Lecture Notes (PDF) in Catalan)
• Comptatge de punts en Corbes sobre Cossos Finits (P.Gaudin) (Lecture Notes (PDF) in Catalan)

The code below is written using Sage, which is:

“a free open-source mathematics software system licensed under the GPL. It combines the power of many existing open-source packages into a common Python-based interface.”

shp

Code to calculate p-adic Stark-Heegner points. Requires a patch for computing with overconvergent modular symbols. (Joint project with Xavier Guitart).

btquotients

Code to compute with quotients of the Bruhat-Tits tree of GL2(Qp). The origional implementation due to Cameron Franc and myself.

atrpoints

Code used to verify numerically certain conjectures of Darmon on ATR points. (Joint project with Xavier Guitart).

The following is a collection of excerpts from the evaluations that students submit toward the end of each course. If you are a student you can obtain all the evaluations (includind the negative ones) at CourseWorks @ Columbia.

Modern Analysis (Summer 2012)

• "Marc is very informative."
• "The instructor is very knowledgeable, knows the subject matter and he tried his best to help students to learn."
• "Marc was an extremely accommodating instructor and would truly go out of his way to ensure a student learned a concept. He continuously encourage participation and questioning. I would hope to take another course with him in the future."
• "He was obviously passionate about the material he was teaching and I came away with a good understand of the material."
• "The professor is very good, really motivates you to learn. You can see he has a lot of knowledge on the subject and the lectures are well prepared every time."

Linear Algebra (Spring 2012)

• "Extremely positive and challenging."
• "Marc Masdeu was a very good professor."
• "Instructor was helpful, knowledgeable, and passionate about the subject. He seemed available to answer questions outside class."
• "Instructor was very good at explaining the material and encouraging student participation."
• "I thought the approach of assigning 'review' problems from past chapters was a unique and very helpful approach to keeping the old material fresh."
• "The instructor was very good and very knowledgeable."
• "I think he did an exceptional job."
• "I liked the computer presentations --they often helped a lot."
• "The professor's passion was infectious. I'm leaving the course with more interested and fascinated by Linear Algebra."
• "Instructor was always generous with his time."

Calculus 1 (Fall 2011)

• "This was my first semester at columbia and I was very happy with Prof. Masdeu's teaching style. He made the class very challenging and stimulating and gave tough exams, but he made sure we had all the resources to do well in them including review periods and allowing plenty of time during the class to ask questions. It was a great blend of a challenging class with the proper assistance to do well in it."
• "Extremely responsive professor, responds to criticism and questions in the material very efficiently"
• "I had taken this class at another college and this one was more challenging and intellectually stimulating. The assignments were well spread out which gave me enough time to seek proper assistance both outside and inside the classroom. After the class I felt that I had accomplished something for myself which was completing a challenging class with a good grade thanks to the prof assistance and the book."
• "I learned the most when I visited Mr. Masdeu during office hours."
• "Professor Masdeu was an excellent instructor. He went over material very thoroughly."
• "He explains the material perfectly. Only and serious problem with this instructor is that his midterms are very hard and challenging."
• "Very willing to hear and answer questions which I really appreciated."
• "Very available to students. Very willing to help."
• "I enjoyed Marc's teaching style."
• "Marc is really nice and helpful if you take the time to ask for help. He wants students to do well and will help them."
• "(...) Marc's approachability and flexibility about office hours, meant that you felt like you could get all your questions answered. Marc was a very pleasant and helpful instructor who challenged us to learn how to think, not just to repeat rote methods for problem solving."
• "[A good aspect of the course was...] his jokes."
• "The professor was fun and nice to be around."

Calculus II (Spring 2011)

• "He encouraged us to ask questions during lecture if we were lost, which contributed to my overall ability to retain the information from lecture. Also, he made himself very accessible to students during his office hours or throughout the week if we had any questions."
• "[A good aspect of the course was...] professor's openness to students' questions and concerns, and his willingness to keep going over material until we understand completely."
• "I am a humanities major, so I was surprised by how interesting the course turned out to be. Marc encouraged students to challenge themselves and develop problem-solving skills."

Calculus 1 (Fall 2010)

• "He's very enthusiastic and always willing to help us and clarify course material."
• "Overall a fair grader, final grade truly reflects how much material you know."
• "I think the WebAssign was a good component of the homework, mixed in with the written homework. Though easier because of the videos and practice problems, it contributed immensely to my understanding of the material."
• "His exams were very difficult."
• "Masdeu is a nice man and cared about improving his teaching. He was ALWAYS available for office hours and tried to help our understanding."
• "After taking course, it seems much easier to understand other science courses such as Physics and Chemistry."
• "[A good aspect of the course was...] teacher's enthusiasm and knowledge of the material."
• "Prof. Masdeu was always helpful and available to his students, and I think this is very important to have for a math course. Though I did not go to office hours very often, when I did, it was extremely useful and Masdeu was able to clarify any questions I had."