Curriculum Vitæ of James Pascaleff

Contact

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Department of Mathematics
1409 W. Green Street
Urbana, IL 61801

Office: 805 W. Pennsylvania Avenue, Room 306
Telephone: +1 217 244 7277
Email: jpascale@illinois.edu
Website: pascaleff.com

Employment

August 2014–Present: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Associate Professor (with tenure) from August 16, 2020. Formerly: Assistant Professor.
August 2011–August 2014: University of Texas at Austin
Instructor and RTG Postdoctoral Fellow

Visiting positions

January–April 2022: Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA), Trieste
Visitor
January–April 2017: Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ
Member, School of Mathematics
September–November 2015: Institut Mittag-Leffler, Djursholm, Sweden
Participant in the program “Sympletic Geometry and Topology”
June–August 2014: Max-Planck-Institut für Mathematik, Bonn
Guest
July–August 2013: King’s College London
Visiting Research Associate

Education

Ph.D. in Mathematics (2011) Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Thesis: Floer cohomology in the mirror of the projective plane and a binodal cubic curve. (Defended April 15, 2011; advisor: Denis Auroux)
A.B. in Mathematics (2006) University of Chicago
with honors.

Grants awarded

External

  • 2014–2017 NSF award, Symplectic Cohomology, log Calabi–Yau Varieties, and equivariant Lagrangian Submanifolds.
  • 2019–2024 Simons Foundation, Collaboration Grant, Fukaya categories: wall-crossing, quantization, and higher categorical structures.

Internal (UIUC)

  • 2024–2025 Campus Research Board, Loop Spaces, Homological Algebra, and Symplectic Geometry.

Honors & fellowships

  • RTG Postdoctoral Fellowship (part of NSF grants DMS-0636557 and DMS-1148490) (2011–2014)
  • MIT Presidential Fellowship (2006–2007)
  • Paul R. Cohen Memorial Prize (Senior Mathematics prize at the University of Chicago) (2006)
  • Phi Beta Kappa, member, Beta of Illinois chapter (2005)
  • Sigma Xi, associate member, University of Chicago chapter (2005)
  • University of Chicago National Merit Scholarship (2002–2006)

Research interests

Symplectic geometry and topology, Floer theory, and homological mirror symmetry.

Publications

  1. Floer cohomology in the mirror of the projective plane and a binodal cubic curve. Duke Math. J. Volume 163, Number 13 (2014), pp. 2427–2516. (arXiv:1109.3255)
  2. On the symplectic cohomology of log Calabi–Yau surfaces. Geom. Topol. Volume 23, Issue 6 (2019), pp. 2701–2792. (arXiv:1304.5298)
  3. (with Yankı Lekili) Floer cohomology of g-equivariant Lagrangian branes. Compositio Math. Volume 152, Issue 05 (2016), pp. 1071–1110. (arXiv:1310.8609)
  4. (with Nicolò Sibilla) Topological Fukaya category and mirror symmetry for punctured surfaces. Compositio Math. Volume 155, Issue 3 (2019), pp. 599–644. (arXiv:1604.06448)
  5. (with Dmitry Tonkonog) The wall-crossing formula and Lagrangian mutations. Adv. Math. Volume 361, 12 February 2020, 106850. (arXiv:1711.03209)
  6. Poisson geometry, monoidal Fukaya categories, and commutative Floer cohomology rings. Enseign. Math. 70 (2024), no. 3/4, pp. 313–381. (arXiv:1803.07676)
  7. (with Nicolò Sibilla) Fukaya categories of higher-genus surfaces and pants decompositions. (arXiv:2103.03366)
  8. (with Nicolò Sibilla) Singularity categories of normal crossings surfaces, descent, and mirror symmetry. (arXiv:2208.03896)
  9. Remarks on the equivalence between differential graded categories and A-infinity categories. Homology, Homotopy and Applications, vol. 26(1), 2024, pp. 275–285. (arXiv:2211.05861)

Talks

  1. Dec. 2010, Northern California Symplectic Geometry Seminar, Stanford University.
    Floer cohomology in the mirror of CP2 relative to a conic and a line.
  2. Jan. 2011, Workshop on Homological Mirror Symmetry and Related Topics, University of Miami (Florida).
    Floer cohomology in the mirror of CP2 relative to a conic and a line.
  3. Jan. 2011, Gauge Theory and Topology Seminar, Harvard University.
    Floer cohomology in the mirror of CP2 relative to a conic and a line.
  4. Feb. 2011, Symplectic Geometry, Gauge Theory and Categorification Seminar, Columbia University.
    Floer cohomology in the mirror of CP2 relative to a conic and a line.
  5. Apr. 2011, Geometry Seminar, University of Texas at Austin.
    Floer cohomology in the mirror of CP2 relative to a conic and a line.
  6. May 2011, Equivariant Quantum Cohomology, Mirror Symmetry and Symplectic Geometry Workshop, Simons Center for Geometry and Physics.
    On Wrapped Floer Cohomology and Mirror Symmetry for Complements of Divisors.
  7. Oct. 2011, Geometry Seminar, Texas A&M University.
  8. Dec. 2012, Mirror Symmetry Seminar, Kansas State University.
    Some apects of Floer theory on Log Calabi-Yau surfaces.
  9. Mar. 2013, Differential Geometry Seminar, Cambridge University.
    On the symplectic geometry of Log Calabi-Yau surfaces.
  10. May 2013, Geometry Seminar, University of Texas at Austin.
    On the symplectic cohomology of log Calabi-Yau surfaces.
  11. Nov. 2013, Geometry Seminar, Texas A&M University.
    Symplectic cohomology and equivariant Lagrangian submanifolds.
  12. Nov. 2013, Geometry and Topology Seminar, University of Massachusetts Amherst.
    Symplectic cohomology and equivariant Lagrangian submanifolds.
  13. Jan. 2014, Conference on Homological Mirror Symmetry, University of Miami (Florida).
    Equivariant Lagrangian branes and representations.
  14. Feb. 2014, Colloquium, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
    Equivariant structures in mirror symmetry and distinguished bases from symplectic geometry.
  15. May 2014, Equivariant Gromov-Witten Theory and Applications workshop, Simons Center for Geometry and Physics.
    Symplectic cohomology and equivariant Lagrangian branes.
  16. Jul. 2014, Mathematical Landings: A Norman conference in geometry and representation theory, Lingeard, France.
    Symplectic cohomology and equivariant Lagrangian branes. Media coverage.
  17. Sep. 2014, Symplectic and Poisson Geometry Seminar, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
    Symplectic cohomology and its role in mirror symmetry.
  18. Oct. 2014, Princeton/IAS Symplectic Geometry Seminar, Institute for Advanced Study.
    Equivariant structures in mirror symmetry.
  19. Dec. 2014, UIUC-WUSTL Symplectic Geometry Seminar, Urbana, Illinois.
    Symplectic cohomology of log Calabi-Yau manifolds.
  20. Jan. 2015, Topology and Geometry Seminar, Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
    Equivariant Lagrangian branes and representations.
  21. Mar. 2015, Geometry, Groups and Dynamics/GEAR Seminar, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
    How can you have dynamics when all you have is a category?
  22. Mar. 2015, Introduction to Graduate Mathematics Seminar, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
    Triangles and the theta series
  23. May 2015, Symplectic Geometry Seminar, Stanford University.
    Equivariant Lagrangians and representations.
  24. Sep. 2015, Symplectic Geometry and Topology Program Seminar, Institut Mittag-Leffler, Djursholm, Sweden.
    Gluing Fukaya categories associated to ribbon graphs.
  25. Oct. 2015, Geometry and Quantum Theory Colloquium, Woudschoten, Zeist, The Netherlands.
    Symplectic cohomology and mirror symmetry.
  26. Nov. 2015, Edinburgh Geometry Seminar (EDGE), Edinburgh Hodge Institute, Scotland.
    Equivariant structures on Lagrangian submanifolds.
  27. Dec. 2015, Mirror Symmetry and Symplectic Geometry Conference, Kyoto University, Japan.
    Wrapped Floer cohomology and Equivariant Mirror Symmetry. (150 minute lecture series)
  28. Feb. 2016, Symplectic and Poisson Geometry Seminar, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
    Gluing Fukaya categories of Riemann surfaces.
  29. Mar. 2016, Conference on Mirror Symmetry and Wall-Crossing, UC Berkeley.
    Symplectic geometry of scattering diagrams for log CY surfaces.
  30. Jul. 2016, Emmy Noether Kolloquium, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany.
    Symplectic cohomology and wall crossing.
  31. Jul. 2016, Symplectic working group seminar, Cambridge University.
  32. Sep. 2017, Symplectic and Poisson Geometry Seminar, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
    Relative Floer theory and wall-crossing.
  33. Sep. 2017, AMS Fall Southeastern Sectional Meeting, Special Session on Symplectic and Contact Topology and Dynamics, University of Central Florida.
    Fukaya categories and Poisson geometry.
  34. Oct. 2017, Back Porch Seminar, Austin, TX.
    Relative Floer theory and wall-crossing.
  35. Oct. 2017, Geometry Seminar, University of Texas at Austin.
    Commutativity and noncommutativity in Floer theory.
  36. Oct. 2017, Algebraic Geometry Seminar, University of Chicago.
    2D topological field theories from algebraic and symplectic geometry (expository talk).
  37. Nov. 2017, Algebraic Geometry Seminar, University of Chicago.
    Symplectic geometry and theta functions.
  38. Dec. 2017, Workshop on Categorification, Representation Theory, and Symplectic Geometry, Hausdorff Research Institute for Mathematics, Bonn.
    Poisson geometry and monoidal Fukaya categories.
  39. Feb. 2018, Symplectic and Poisson Geometry Seminar, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
    Symplectic groupoids and monoidal Fukaya categories.
  40. Apr. 2018, Introduction to Graduate Mathematics Seminar, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
    Symplectic geometry and categorification.
  41. Jun. 2018, Focus Program on Poisson Geometry and Physics, The Fields Institute.
    Structures in the Floer theory of symplectic Lie groupoids. (Mini-course, approximately 6 hours)
  42. Jul. 2018, A Symplectic Cut, a joint seminar of King’s College London and University College London.
    Symplectic groupoids and monoidal Fukaya categories.
  43. Oct. 2018, IAS/PU Symplectic Geometry and Dynamics Seminar, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ.
    Structures in the Floer theory of symplectic Lie groupoids.
  44. Oct. 2018, Geometry and Physics Seminar, Northwestern University.
    Wall-crossing formulas for Lagrangian mutations. Pre-talk: Monotone Lagrangians and disk counting.
  45. Oct. 2018, Conference on Wall-crossing formula, open Gromov-Witten invariants and related areas, Institute for Basic Science/Center for Geometry and Physics, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, Korea.
    Wall-crossing formulas for Lagrangian mutations.
  46. Feb. 2019, Mathematics Inspired by String Theory (MIST) 2019 Workshop II, Chinese University of Hong Kong.
    Structures in the Floer theory of symplectic Lie groupoids.
  47. Mar. 2019, Mathematics Colloquium, Indiana University.
    Lagrangian submanifolds and disk counting.
  48. Mar. 2019, Number Theory and Algebraic Geometry Seminar, Boston College.
    Lagrangian submanifolds, disk counting, and wall-crossing.
  49. Apr. 2019, Symplectic Representation Theory, CIRM Luminy, France.
    On monoidal structures on Fukaya categories.
  50. Apr. 2019, Symplectic Geometry, Gauge Theory, and Categorification Seminar, Columbia University.
    On monoidal structures on Fukaya categories.
  51. Aug. 2019, International Conference on Symplectic Topology, IMPA, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
    On the Floer-theoretic nature of canonical bases.
  52. Dec. 2019, Hodge Institute, University of Edinburgh, Scotland.
    Moduli spaces of Lagrangians in symplectic topology and mirror symmetry.
  53. Jan. 2020, International Workshop on Symplectic Geometry, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
    Moduli spaces of Lagrangians in symplectic topology and mirror symmetry. (Three-hour lecture series)
  54. Oct. 2020, Winter School “Connections between representation theory and geometry,” Hausdorff Research Institute for Mathematics.
    Introduction to Fukaya Categories. (Three-hour minicourse)
  55. Jun. 2021, Seminario de Geometría y Física Matemática, Universidad Católica del Norte (Chile) and Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil).
    Structures in the Floer theory of Symplectic Groupoids.
  56. Jun. 2021, Braids, mutations and twists in algebra and geometry, Uppsala University.
    Moduli spaces of objects and wall-crossing for disk potentials.
  57. Jun. 2021, Guest lecturer in a reading course on Fukaya categories, University of Vienna.
    Examples of Fukaya categories and mirror symmetry. (Three hours)
  58. Nov. 2021, Geometry and Physics Seminar, Northwestern University.
    Gluing Fukaya categories of surfaces and singularity categories.
  59. Mar. 2022, Western Hemisphere Virtual Symplectic Seminar.
    Categories obtained from pants decompositions.
  60. Apr. 2022, Virtual Joint Mathematics Meetings, AMS Special Session on Quantum Categorical Structures in Mirror Symmetry.
    Fukaya categories and pants decompositions of surfaces.
  61. Nov. 2022, Workshop on matrix factorizations and related topics, University of Notre Dame.
    Singular support of coherent sheaves and mirror symmetry.
  62. Apr. 2023, AMS Spring Central Sectional Meeting, Special Session on Quantitative Aspects of Symplectic Topology, University of Cincinnati.
    Mirrors of normal crossings surfaces at infinity.
  63. Nov. 2023, Seminar on 3D Mirror Symmetry and Elliptic Cohomology, SISSA.
    Higher Fukaya Categories and 3D HMS.

Teaching and Mentoring

Ph.D. students

  • Jesse Huang (UIUC, Ph.D. 2021. Subsequent position: PIMS Postdoc at the University of Alberta)
  • Jie Yeo (UIUC, started Fall 2022).
  • Omar Musleh (UIUC, started Fall 2022).

UIUC

(TRE = List of teachers ranked as excellent by their students.)

  • Spring 2024: Differentiable Manifolds II (Math 519)TRE
  • Spring 2024: Fundamental Mathematics (Math 347)
  • Fall 2023: Introduction to Abstract Algebra (MATH 417)
  • Fall 2022: Differentiable Manifolds I (MATH 518)
  • Fall 2022: Fukaya categories of surfaces (MATH 595)
  • Fall 2021: Introduction to Abstract Algebra (MATH 417, 2 sections)TRE
  • Spring 2021: Introduction to Abstract Algebra (MATH 417, 2 sections)
  • Spring 2020: Vector and Tensor Analysis (MATH 481)TRE
  • Fall 2019: Introduction to Abstract Algebra (MATH 417)TRE
  • Fall 2019: Riemann Surfaces and Algebraic Curves (MATH 510)TRE
  • Spring 2019: Illinois Geometry Lab Project, Homological Algebra of Quiver Representations (5 undergraduate researchers).
  • Fall 2018: Illinois Geometry Lab Project, Geometric Group Actions on Categories (5 undergraduate researchers).
  • Fall 2018: Calculus III (MATH 241, 2 sections)
  • Spring 2018: Homological Mirror Symmetry (graduate topic course, MATH 595)TRE
  • Spring 2018: Introduction to Abstract Algebra (MATH 417)TRE
  • Fall 2017: General Topology (MATH 535)TRE
  • Fall 2016: Calculus III (MATH 241, 2 sections)
  • Spring 2016: Riemann Surfaces and Algebraic Curves (MATH 510)
  • Spring 2016: Introduction to Differential Equations (MATH 285)
  • Spring 2015: Differentiable Manifolds II (MATH 519)
  • Fall 2014: Introduction to Differential Equations (MATH 285, 2 sections)

SISSA

  • Spring 2022: Topics in Homological Mirror Symmetry (20 hours)

UT Austin

  • Spring 2014: Lagrangian Floer Homology (graduate topic course, M 392C)
  • Fall 2013: Differential and Integral Calculus (∼120 students, M 408C)
  • Spring 2013: Multivariable Calculus (∼120 students, M 408M)
  • Fall 2012: Advanced Calculus for Applications I (Differential equations and Fourier series, ∼120 students, M 427K)
  • Spring 2012: Probability I (M 362K)
  • Fall 2011: Sequences, Series, and Multivariable Calculus (∼120 students, M 408D)

MIT

  • Summer 2009: Mentor for two students in SPUR.
    • Emily Berger (MIT 2011), Hurwitz equivalence in the dihedral group.
    • Colin Sandon (MIT 2012), Curves in tropical geometry.
  • Spring 2009: Recitation Instructor and Course Administrator for 18.02, Multivariable Calculus.
  • Fall 2008: Recitation Instructor for 18.06, Linear Algebra.
  • Summer 2008: Instructor for 18.085, Mathematical Methods for Engineers (first half).
  • Spring 2008: Assistant for 18.821, Project Laboratory in Mathematics.
  • Fall 2007: Grader for 18.100C, Analysis I with writing instruction.

U. of Chicago

  • Summer 2019: Instructor, grades 11–12, U. of Chicago Young Scholars Program.
  • Fall 2005: Grader for Honors Calculus (Math 161), Set Theory and Metric Spaces (Math 261).
  • Summer 2005: Lead Counselor, grades 11–12, U. of Chicago Young Scholars Program.
  • Winter–Spring 2005: Junior Tutor in Mathematics for Introductory Calculus (Math 152, 153).
  • Summer 2003, 2004: Counselor, U. of Chicago Young Scholars Program.

Service activities

External

  • External referee for the Ph.D. thesis of Hayato Morimura, SISSA (September 8, 2023), and Soham Chanda, Rutgers University (March 5, 2024).

UIUC

  • Undergraduate Affairs Committee (2024–2026, Chair).
  • Teaching mentor for junior faculty (2024–).
  • P&T subcommittee (Fall 2024).
  • MDAB: faculty liaison for Student Success subcommittee (2024–).
  • Capricious Grading Committee (2023–2024).
  • Climate, Equity, and Inclusivity committee (Fall 2022).
  • Teaching Awards committee (2022–2023).
  • Organizer of Symplectic and Poisson Geometry Seminar (Fall 2016, AY 2018–19, AY 2019–20).
  • Preliminary examination committees for Daan Michiels (March 5, 2015), Melinda Lanius (May 4, 2015), Sungwoo Nam (April 10, 2019), Nachiketa Adhikari (August 13, 2020), Shuyu Xiao (November 10, 2021), Sambit Senapati (December 9, 2021), Nicole Yamzon (January 26, 2023; committee chair), Ciaran O’Neill (March 11, 2023), Jonghyeon Ahn (November 28, 2023; committee chair), Zijing Ye (January 15, 2024), Nikolay Sheshko (May 2, 2024), Omar Musleh (May 8, 2024), Ruoxi Li (October 11, 2024).
  • Final examination committees for Daan Michiels (March 27, 2018), Joel Villatoro (April 26, 2018), Matej Penciak (June 17, 2019; committee chair), Jesse Huang (May 5, 2021), Yuxuan Zhang (May 27, 2022), Sungwoo Nam (June 2, 2023), Shuyu Xiao (April 3, 2024).
  • Reviewer for the Campus Research Board.
  • Mathematics Department Executive Committee (2020–2021). This elected committee is responsible for all budgetary decisions, faculty hiring, and the yearly faculty evaluation for raises.
  • Graduate affairs committee (2019–2020).
  • Capricious grading committee (2019–2020).
  • Altgeld/Illini renovation committee (2019–2021).
  • Undergraduate affairs committee (2015–2019).
  • Picnic committee (2014, 2018, 2021).

IAS

  • Co-organizer, with Paul Seidel, of the “Workshop on Homological Mirror Symmetry: Emerging Developments and Applications,” March 13–17, 2017, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ. This was the spring workshop for the special year on homological mirror symmetry at IAS.
  • Organized a reading group on higher genus Gromov-Witten theory at IAS in the Spring 2017 semester.

UT Austin

  • Co-organizer of the “Graduate Geometry and Topology Current Literature Seminar.”

MIT

  • Co-organizer of the MIT-RTG Geometry workshop, with David Nadler, Breckenridge, CO, June 12-18, 2011.
  • Organizer of a reading group on Ivan Smith’s “Floer cohomology and pencils of quadrics,” Fall 2010.
  • Co-organizer of the Graduate Symplectic Field Theory workshop mentored by Tobias Ekholm in Raymond, ME, August 30-September 3, 2010. (Funded by the MIT Geometry RTG.)
  • Organizer of graduate student seminar Symplectic Hunt, Spring 2008–Spring 2009.