Maurice's Home Page

J. Maurice Rojas, AMS Fellow (class of 2019) Executive Associate Head for Teaching Operations, and Professor of Mathematics	e-mail: lastname atsign tamu.edu Office: Blocker 305E (usually) & 620C (sometimes) Office Phone: (979) 845-7554 Fax: (979) 862-4190 Paper Mail: Department of Mathematics Texas A&M University 3368 TAMU College Station, Texas 77843 USA Full Vita

Teaching

Math 478: (Undergraduate) Topological Data Analysis
My Teaching Before Fall 2024

Seminars of Interest

• The Texas A&M Algebraic Geometry Seminar (organized by Frank Sottile)

• The Texas A&M Algebra & Combinatorics Seminar (organized by Sarah Witherspoon)

Research Interests

• Algorithmic Algebraic Geometry
• Tropical Geometry Over Complete Fields
• Complexity Theory

Research Work

• You can find my research papers indexed by a full list (including supplemental software) or classified (with overlaps) by theme. The latter description contains a bit of peripheral discussion as to what my papers are about.
• Extremal Real Algebraic Geometry!
• Find out more about the Smalefest 2000 proceedings volume I co-edited with Felipe Cucker by looking at item #26 on my paper's list.

Grants and Awards

• ``REU Site Grant: Undergraduate Research in the Mathematical Sciences and their Applications,'' ($388,556, PI is Anne Shiu, Rojas is co-PI), NSF, DMS-2150094, 5/1/2022-4/30/2025.
• ``Arithmetic Geometry Methods for Complexity and Communication'', ($308,005, PI at Texas A&M U: Rojas) Collaborative Research (with separately funded PIs Qi Cheng at U Oklahoma, Shuhong Gao at Clemson U, and Daqing Wan at UC Irvine), NSF, CCF-1900881, 4/1/2019-7/31/2023.
• ``REU Site Grant: Undergraduate Research in the Mathematical Sciences and their Applications,'' ($350,000, PIs J. Maurice Rojas and Anne Shiu), NSF, DMS-1757872, 6/1/2018-5/31/2021.
• John von Neumann Visiting Professor, Technische Universitat Munchen, to deliver course on Algorithmic Fewnomial Theory, Oct-Nov, 2015.
• ``REU Site Grant: Undergraduate Research in the Mathematical Sciences and their Applications,'' ($343,408, PIs J. Maurice Rojas and Anne Shiu), NSF, DMS-1460766, 6/1/2015-5/31/2018.
• ``Sparse Polynomials, Complexity, and Algorithms'', ($250,000, PI at Texas A&M U: Rojas) Collaborative Research (with separately funded PIs Qi Cheng at U Oklahoma, Shuhong Gao at Clemson U, and Daqing Wan at UC Irvine), NSF, CCF-1409020, 9/1/2014-8/31/2018.
• ``MCS: Randomization in Algorithmic Fewnomial Theory Over Complete Fields,'' ($400,001, PI: Rojas, co-PIs: Martin Avendano, Scott Zrebiec) Mathematics/Computer Science Interface Program, NSF, DMS-0915245, 9/1/2009-8/31/2013.
• ``ASCR: Topology for Statistical Modeling of Petascale Data,'' (TAMU amount $214,795, co-PI: Rojas, PI: P. Pebay of Sandia National Laboratories, and other co-PIs from University of Utah), Advanced Scientific Computing Research (Mathematics for Analysis of Petascale Data), Department of Energy, DE-SC0002505, 9/1/2009-8/31/2012.
• Wenner-Gren Foundation Visiting Researcher Grant (75000 Swedish Kroner), to visit and work with Mikael Passare and Boris Shapiro at Stockholm University, Sweden (awarded 12/2008, visit will be during Mar.-Jun. 2009)
• ``TAGS (Texas Algebraic Geometry Seminar) 2009,'' ($8690, PI: Rojas, co-PIs: J. M. Landsberg, Paulo Lima-Filho, Laura Matusevich, Frank Sottile), conference proposal, NSF, DMS-0915235, 4/1/2009-3/31/2010
• NSF CAREER Award: DMS-0349309: Complexity, Reality, and Rationality in Large Nonlinear Equations Solving (9/1/04 - 8/31/09)
• Robust Output Sensitive Algorithms for Subanalytic Geometry: NSF Grant DMS-0211458 (jointly funded by the Computational Mathematics and Algebra/Number Theory/Combinatorics programs), 2003-2005.
• Degeneracy Detection for Curved Solids (co-PI with John Keyser): Incubation grant DMS-0138446 from the NSF CARGO (Computational and Algorithmic Representation of Geometric Objects) program, 2002-2003.
• NSF grant to co-organize (with Paulo Lima-Filho and Hal Schenck) a CBMS Lecture Series Conference during May 17-24, 2002.
• Journal of Complexity 2000 Best Paper Award (to be awarded at FoCM 2002).
• College of Science Grant (Texas A&M University), 2001-2002
• Complexity and Geometric Recognition (University Grants Council, Hong Kong), 2000-2002
• City U Grant (Co-investigator, with 10 other faculty from the Mathematics and Computer Science Departments): Group Research in Learning, Theory, and Applications
• Joint France/Hong Kong PROCORE Grant (Co-PI with Ioannis Z. Emiris of INRIA Sophia-Antipolis): Efficient Numeric and Symbolic Methods for Solving Sparse Polynomial Systems and Their Applications in Economics, 2000-2001
• Polyhedral Entropy and Random p-adic Varieties (University Grants Council, Hong Kong), 1999-2001
• Toric Geometric Methods for Large Real Solving (University Grants Council, Hong Kong), 1998-2000
• Algebra, Algorithms, and Applications (City University of Hong Kong), 1998-1999
• Polyhedral Algorithms for Fast and Stable Equation Solving (City University of Hong Kong), 1998-1999
• National Science Foundation Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Fellowship (1995-1998)
• 1992 SIAM Best Student Paper Award

Postdocs

• Timo de Wolff (Ph.D. 2013, Goethe U in Frankfurt), co-mentored with Frank Sottile, now a professor at TU Braunschweig.
• Harlan Kadish (Ph.D. 2011, U Michigan), co-mentored with JM Landsberg; now at Ab Initio
• Mounir Nisse (Ph.D. 2010, University Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris 6), co-mentored with Frank Sottile, now an associate professor at Xiamen University, Malaysia.
• Martin Avendano (Ph.D. 2008, U Buenos Aires; now a tenured associate professor at University of Zaragoza, Spain)
• Scott Zrebiec (Ph.D. 2007, JHU; now a statistical project manager at Lexis-Nexis), co-mentored with Emil Straube

Current Students

• Weixun Deng, Ph.D. student (Mathematics)
• Joshua Goldstein, Ph.D. student (Mathematics)

Former Students

• Yuyu Zhu (Ph.D. in Mathematics 2020), Research Scientist at Facebook.
• David Offner, (M.S. in Mathematics, 2020)
• Kris Watkins (M.S. in Mathematics, 2020), lecturer in mathematics at Texas A&M University.
• Alperen Ergür (Ph.D. in Mathematics 2016, tenure-track assistant professor at UT San Antonio; formerly a postdoc at Carnegie Mellon, Technical University of Berlin, and NC State)
• Sabyasachi Chakraborty (M.S. in Computer Science 2018).
• Emma Owusu Kwaakwah (M.S. in Mathematics 2016, now an Industrial Engineering Ph.D. student at UT Arlington)
• Kaitlyn Phillipson (Ph.D. in Mathematics 2016, now a tenure-track assistant professor at St. Edwards University, Austin)
• Korben Rusek (Ph.D. in Mathematics 2013, Senior iOS developer, A Place for Rover, Seattle)
• Rohun Kshirsagar (M.A. 2011)
• Ashraf Ibrahim (Ph.D. in Mathematics 12/2009, now a consultant at Bayer, Pittsburgh)
• Swaminathan Sethuraman (Ph.D. in Mathematics 5/2009, now at Credit Suisse)
• Michael Muzheve (M.S., 2006; Ph.D. in Mathematics Education, 2008)
• Theodoros Kyriopolos (M.S. in Mathematics, 12/2007)
• Casey Stella (M.S. in Mathematics, 2006)

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