Background
I hail from Bucharest, Romania. I did my undergraduate studies at the Faculty of Mathematics of the University of Bucharest. Here is a picture from those days.
For my graduate studies, I went to Columbia University, receiving my Ph.D. degree in 1984. Here is a picture from around that time, taken in Cambridge, UK.
After a J.W. Gibbs Instructorship at Yale University, I came in 1986 to Northeastern University, where I've been ever since.
Research
My research interests are in Topology, and how it relates to Algebra, Geometry, and Combinatorics. I mainly study hyperplane arrangements, cohomology jumping loci, and generalized moment angle complexes. I also study various problems concerning the topology and geometry of knots, links, and manifolds, and the homology and lower central series of discrete groups. Below are some recent papers and preprints (click here
for a complete list).
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Toric complexes and Artin kernels (with S. Papadima), Adv. Math. 220 (2009), no. 2, 441-477.
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Non-finiteness properties of fundamental groups of smooth projective varieties (with A. Dimca and S. Papadima), J. Reine Angew. Math 629 (2009), 89-105.
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Which 3-manifold groups are Kähler groups? (with A. Dimca), J. Eur. Math. Soc. 11 (2009), no. 3, 521-528.
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Topology and geometry of cohomology jump loci (with A. Dimca and S. Papadima), Duke Math. J. 148 (2009), no. 3, 405-457.
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Geometric and algebraic aspects of 1-formality (with S. Papadima), Bull. Math. Soc. Sci. Math. Roumanie 52 (2009), no. 3, 355-375.
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The spectral sequence of an equivariant chain complex and homology with local coefficients (with S. Papadima), Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 362 (2010), no. 5, 2685-2721.
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Bieri-Neumann-Strebel-Renz invariants and homology jumping loci (with S. Papadima), Proc. London Math. Society 100 (2010), no. 3, 795-834.
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Algebraic monodromy and obstructions to formality
(with S. Papadima), Forum Math. 22 (2010), no. 5, 973-983.
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Fundamental groups, Alexander invariants, and cohomology jumping loci, in: Topology of algebraic varieties and singularities, 179-223, Contemporary Math., vol. 538, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 2011.
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Quasi-Kähler groups, 3-manifold groups, and formality (with A. Dimca and S. Papadima), Math. Zeit., 268 (2011), no. 1, 169-186.
- Resonance varieties and Dwyer-Fried invariants, in: Arrangements of Hyperplanes (Sapporo 2009), 359-398, Adv. Stud. Pure Math., vol. 62, Kinokuniya, Tokyo, 2012.
- Homological finiteness in the Johnson filtration of the automorphism group of a free group (with S. Papadima), preprint November 2010.
- Intersections of translated algebraic subtori (with Y. Yang and G. Zhao), preprint September 2011, revised October 2011.
- Characteristic varieties and Betti numbers of free abelian covers, preprint November 2011, revised December 2011.
- Geometric and homological finiteness in free abelian covers, preprint July 2011, revised December 2011.
Teaching
I teach a variety of math courses, both at the undergraduate and graduate level. If you are interested in taking a directed study course or a reading course with me (in addition to those courses regularly offered), please contact me.
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In Spring 2010, I taught an undergraduate course in
Topology, and graduate courses
in Topology 2
and Topics in Topology.
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In Fall 2010, I taught two sections of MATH 3175, an undergraduate course in Group Theory, and MATH 7721, a Readings in Topology graduate course.
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In Spring 2011, I taught MATH 3150, an undergraduate course in Real Analysis; MATH 5121, a graduate Topology 1 course; and MATH 7722, a Readings in Algebraic Topology course.
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In Fall 2011, I taught MATH 3150, an undergraduate course in Real Analysis; MATH 7221, a graduate course in Topology 2; and MATH 7321, a graduate course in Topology 3.
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In Spring 2012, I teach MATH 7722, a Readings in Algebraic Topology course, and MATH 7723, a Readings in Geometric Topology course.
