research

Research Overview


My research focuses on knots and three-manifolds. I am particularly interested in the Floer-theoretic tools of Heegaard Floer theory and contact homology. Both of these are defined via pseudoholomorphic curves in symplectic manifolds, but they can also be approached from a combinatorial perspective as well. Generally speaking, the geometric theories are more powerful while the combinatorial versions are easier to work with. I study the interplay between these two viewpoints as well as their applications to topological and contact geometric questions. In addition to contact geometry, I am also interested in topological topics such as Dehn surgery, Heegaard splittings, and link genus.


Papers


  • Legendrian grid number one knots and augmentations of their differential algebras, submitted.

  • Invariants for Legendrian knots in lens spaces, arXiv:0901.4226, to appear in Communications in Contemporary Mathematics.

  • Constructing Seifert surfaces from n-bridge link projections, arxiv:0801.4800, to appear in the Journal of Knot Theory and Its Ramifications.

  • The Thurston polytope for four-stranded pretzel links, Algebraic and Geometric Topology 8 (2008).


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    Revised on March 27th, 2008