Jonathan

Noel

Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics ​and Statistics at the University of Victoria in the ​Discrete Mathematics Group.

Research Interests

  • Extremal combinatorics
  • Analytic limits of combinatorial objects
  • Quasirandomness
  • Probability theory
  • Ramsey theory
  • Graph colourings and homomorphisms
  • Percolation
  • Algorithms and complexity
  • Descriptive combinatorics
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Five Selected Publications





Education and CV

DPhil (PhD) Mathematics

University of Oxford

Defended: June 2016

DPhil Thesis: Extremal Combinatorics, Graph Limits and Computational Complexity

Adviser: Alex Scott


MSc Mathematics

McGill University

April 2013

Masters Thesis: Choosability of Graphs with Bounded Order: Ohba's Conjecture and Beyond

Adviser: Bruce Reed


BSc (Hons) Mathematics

Thompson Rivers University

April 2011

Honours Thesis: The Invariant Subspace Problem

Adviser: Robb Fry

Service and Outreach

I am a co-organizer for the Discrete Math Seminar at UVic with Natasha Morrison

I am on the Program Committee of CanaDAM 2025 taking place in Ottawa on May 26-29, 2025

Here is a video from April 2024 of two of my grad students and I giving ​an overview of the Szemerédi Regularity Lemma

Here is a talk that I gave at the 2024 AMS Spring Western Sectional ​Meeting: slides

I organized a Minisymposium on Extremal Combinatorics and Beyond at ​CanaDAM 2023.

In November 2022, I gave an outreach talk Solving HUGE Problems ​Quickly in the IMAGINING UVic: Inspiring Mathematical Growth and ​Intuition in Girls seminar series. Slides.

In 2022, Donga Science (Korea) made a comic for children ​based on my paper with Oleg Pikhurko and András Máthé on ​Tarski’s Circle Squaring Problem. Here is a pdf of the comic.

I was on the Program Committee for the 2022 ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA22)

I co-organized a Minisymposium on Bootstrap Percolation at CanaDAM 2019 with Natasha Morrison.

I was on the Program Committee for the 2019 Latin and American Algorithms, Graphs and Optimization ​Symposium (LAGOS 2019).

I am an active contributor of AMS Mathematical Reviews.

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Students and Postdocs

We are always looking for Undergraduate, Master's and PhD students and Postdoctoral Researchers ​to join our group. My work focuses on problems in extremal and probabilistic combinatorics using ​methods from other areas such as analysis, algebra, computer science and optimization. No prior ​experience in these areas is required. If this sounds exciting to you, then do not hesitate to send me ​an e-mail at noelj@uvic.ca!

Postdocs:


Current:

None


Past:

2. Joseph Hyde. University of Victoria, Started in August 2022. Co-supervised with Natasha ​Morrison and Bruce Reed.


1. Natalie Behague. University of Victoria, January 2022 to November 2023. Co-supervised with ​Natasha Morrison. Now a postdoc at the University of Warwick.


PhD Students:


Current:

1. Jae-baek Lee. University of Victoria, Started in January 2021. Co-supervised with Gary ​MacGillivray.


Master's Students:


Current:

5. Lina Maria Simbaqueba Marin. University of Victoria, Started in September 2023.


Past:

4. Ashna Wright. University of Victoria, Started in September 2022. Co-supervised with Natasha ​Morrison.


3. Arjun Ranganathan, Inducing Graphs, Hypergraphs, and Tournaments. IISER, Pune, 2023-2024. ​Co-supervised with Matthew Kwan. Soon to be a PhD student at University College London.


2. Abel Romer, Tight Bounds on 3-Neighbor Bootstrap Percolation. University of Victoria, 2020-​2022. Co-supervised with Peter Dukes.


1. Vincent Pfenninger, Graph Bootstrap Processes in Complete Bipartite Graphs. ETH Zürich, Spring ​Semester 2017. Co-supervised with Benny Sudakov. Now a postdoc at TU Graz.


Undergraduate Research Students:


Current:

None. Please feel free to contact me if you’re interested in doing a research project with me!


Past:

7. Christopher Turton. University of Victoria, NSERC USRA Summer Research Student. May-Aug ​2024.


6. Elena Moss. University of Victoria, NSERC USRA Summer Research Student. May-Aug 2023. Now ​a Graduate Student at the Berlin Mathematical School. See also this article on Elena‘s mathematical ​journey.


5. Gabriel Crudele, Six Permutation Patterns Force Quasirandomness. University of Victoria, ​Summer Research Student, May-Aug 2022. Co-supervised with Peter Dukes. Now a Master's ​Student at McGill University.


4. Elena Moss, Off-Diagonal Ramsey Multiplicity. University of Victoria, NSERC USRA Summer ​Research Student, May-Aug 2022. Now a Graduate Student at the Berlin Mathematical School. See ​also this article on Elena‘s mathematical journey.


3. Lina Maria Simbaqueba Marin, Sidorenko-Type Inequalityies for Pairs of Trees. University of ​Victoria, Mitacs Globalink Research Intern from Universidad Nacional de Colombia, May-Aug 2022. ​Now a Master's Student at the University of Victoria.


2. Arjun Ranganathan, On the Running Time of Hypergraph Bootstrap Percolation. Research Intern ​from IISER, Pune, June 2021-May 2022.


1. Joe Wall, Saturation and Weak Saturation. University of Warwick, URSS Program, Summer 2018. ​Now a PhD student at Lancaster University.


Undergraduate Theses:


Current:

7. Christopher Turton. University of Victoria, Math 498. 2024/2025.


Past:

6. Gabriel Crudele. University of Victoria, Math 498. 2022/2023. Now a Master's Student at McGill ​University.


5. Adam Finchett. Graph Limits, Norms and Applications. 4th Year Essay. University of Warwick, ​2019/2020. Now a Data Scientist at Schroders Personal Wealth.


4. Matt Pike. Problems in Bootstrap Percolation. 4th Year Essay. University of Warwick, 2018/2019.


3. Rachel Hardgrave. Classical Theorems in List Colouring. 3rd Year Essay. University of Warwick, ​2019/2020.


2. Sophia Werner. Semi-Definite Programming. 3rd Year Essay. University of Warwick, 2018/2019.


1. Stefan Lochau. Entropy and Linear Programming Methods for Counting Matchings and ​Independent Sets in Graphs. Bachelor Thesis. ETH Zürich, Autumn Semester 2016. Co-supervised ​with Benny Sudakov. Now a software engineer at Cudos AG.

Applying to UVic for Master's or PhD

If you would like to apply to be a grad student at UVic, please take note of the deadlines. ​Applications sometimes take weeks or months to go through the UVic internal system before profs ​can see them. A surprisingly high percentage of applications to our department arrive so late that ​professors do not even see them until after they have made their decisions on graduate students (if ​at all). This is especially true for international students. I would therefore recommend applying as ​early as possible, preferably weeks or even months before the deadline. After submitting your ​application through the UVic system, I would recommend also sending it to your potential ​supervisor(s) directly. This is the only way that you can assume that they have had a chance to ​see your application!


Before applying to UVic, you should familiarize yourself with our program. One source of information ​is the Graduate Handbook. It should give you a rough idea of what to expect and you can get in ​touch with me for further information.


All PhD students in our department have to pass something called “candidacy,” which is supposed ​to take place before they start doing research. However, if you come to do a PhD with me, then we ​will start doing research as soon as you are ready (which may be before you have completed ​candidacy; perhaps even the first day of your PhD). I will do my best to come up with a candidacy ​plan that helps you move towards your future goals as effectively as possible (subject to the ​approval of the department), whatever those goals may be.

Advice for Early Career Researchers

General Advice:

— Gian-Carlo Rota's Ten Lessons I Wish I Had Been Taught.

— Advice to a Young Mathematician with contributions from Sir Michael Atiyah, Béla Bollobás, Alain ​Connes, Dusa McDuff, and Peter Sarnak.

— Terence Tao's Career Advice.

— Fan Chung's Advice for grad students.

— William P. Thurston's On Proof and Progress in Mathematics.

— Guidance for graduate students, new PhDs, and professionals at all levels from the Committee on ​the Status of Women in Computing Research.

— Specific information for math grad students at UVic can be found on the Guidelines page on the ​UVic Math & Stats Department site. In particular, I suggest reading the graduate handbook.


Writing and Presenting Mathematics:

— Paul Halmos' How to Write Mathematics and How to Talk Mathematics.

— Donald E. Knuth, Tracy Larrabee and Paul M. Roberts' Mathematical Writing.

— Keith Conrad's Advice on Mathematical Writing.

— Stephen G. Krantz's How to Write Your First Paper.

— John Etnyre's The Art of Writing Introductions.

— Francis Su's Guidelines for Good Mathematical Writing.

— Agelos Georgakopoulos' webpage on How to Give a Good Talk.

— Bruce C. Berndt's How to Write Mathematical Papers.

— Chris Godsil's Advice on how to write well and give good talks.

— Doug West's The Grammar According to West.

— Terence Tao's On Writing.

— Tim Gowers' How should mathematics be taught to non-mathematicians?


Other Advice:

• Familiarize yourself with the types of questions that one is asked during a PhD, postdoc or faculty ​position interview and practice answering them. I have started to compile a list of possible interview ​questions for jobs in mathematics that you may find helpful.


• I recommend all students and early career researchers in discrete mathematics to subscribe to the ​Discrete Mathematics and Algorithms Network (DMANET) mailing list. This will provide information ​on opportunities (jobs, scholarships, events, etc) in the area.


• I also recommend subscribing to the math.CO arxiv mailing list to keep yourself up to date on the ​latest developments in the area.


• It is important for early career researchers to have an academic webpage. This still applies if you ​have only a few papers, or none at all. It is crucial that people can easily find out (a) who you are, (b) ​where you are, (c) what you're interested in, and (d) what you've done. You don't want to miss out ​on opportunities just because people can't find you!


• Go to conferences and give talks. Its a great way to meet new people in the area, get exposure to ​new ideas and disseminate your work. Doug West maintains a comprehensive list of conferences in ​combinatorics.


Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

Members of underrepresented groups face special obstacles in the mathematical sciences, and in ​academia more broadly. Mathematics, and academia as a whole, is still in the process of ​understanding and recognizing these challenges and learning how to overcome them, but some ​great progress is being made by some amazing people. For more information:


— The Math is For All project created by Annie Raymond; see also the Instagram.

— Lathisms: Latinxs and Hispanics in the Mathematical Sciences.

— Indigenous Mathematicians webpage.

— Mathematically Gifted and Black webpage.

— National Association of Mathematicians promotes mathematics in underrepresented minorities

— Mathematicians of the African Diaspora webpage.

— Meet a Mathematician shares stories of mathematicians from diverse backgrounds.

— the Association for Women in Mathematics UVic Student Chapter.

— UVic's Policy on Human Rights, Equity and Fairness.

— The webpage for the Math & Statistics Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (MSEDI) committee at UVic.

— NSERC's Guide for Applicants: Considering equity, diversity and inclusion in your application.

— LMS Advice on Diversity at Conferences and Seminars.

— The Women in Combinatorics (WinCom) group maintains a database of female researchers. This ​is a valuable resource. E.g., event organizers can use it to improve diversity among invited ​speakers.

Funding and Jobs

Undergraduate Research

• NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Awards (USRA); see also the Math & Stats webpage

• UVic Science Undergraduate Research Awards (SURA); see also the Math & Stats webpage

• UVic Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Awards (JCURA); see also the Math & Stats ​webpage

• UVic Valerie Kuehne Undergraduate Research Awards (VKURA); see also the Math & Stats ​webpage

• The Mitacs Globalink Research Awards provide funding for senior undergraduates, graduate ​students and postdocs to undertake a 12- to 24-week research project in another country.


Undergraduate Travel Funding

• UVic Boehm Family Award for Undergraduate Travel


International Undergraduate Research Internships

• Mitacs Globalink Research Internship


Undergraduate Activities

• Canadian Mathematics Society Student Committee Student Activities Funding Application


Graduate Student Funding (Master's and PhD)

• NSERC Postgraduate Scholarships and Canada Graduate Scholarships (PGS/CGS M and D) ​(Canadian citizens and permanent residents only)

• NSERC Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships

• Mitacs Globalink Graduate Fellowship (only for former Mitacs Globalink Interns)

• More information about funding opportunities for grad students can be found on the UVic Math & ​Stats Financial Support page


Graduate Student Travel Funding (Master's and PhD)

• The Faculty of Graduate Studies at UVic offers Travel Grants

• CUPE 4163 offers Conference Funding for TAs and other members.

• The Mitacs Globalink Research Awards provide funding for senior undergraduates, graduate ​students and postdocs to undertake a 12- to 24-week research project in another country.

• Many conferences offer travel funding for students. For students in combinatorics, the SIAM ​Discrete Math Conference (held in even years) and the CanaDAM Conference (held in odd years) ​usually do. If you want to get travel funding, then you should probably plan to present a talk.


Postdoctoral Fellowships

• Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS) Postdoctoral Fellowships

• Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM) Postdoctoral Fellowships

• Fields Research Fellowships

• NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowships

• NSERC Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships

• PIMS/CNRS Postdoctoral Fellowships are for researchers who are French or completed their PhD ​in France to work in Canada

• European Research Council (ERC) Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowships are postdoctoral positions ​to be held in the EU, or for EU researchers

• Leverhulme Early Career Fellowships are postdoctoral positions to be held in the UK

• The Royal Society University Research Fellowships are highly competitive independent ​postdoctoral positions to be held in the UK

• Heilbronn Research Fellowships are postdoctoral positions in mathematics that can be held at ​several universities in the UK (but primarily at the University of Bristol).

• Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellowships are postdoctoral positions to be held in Germany.

• Warwick Zeeman Lecturer is an independent postdoctoral position at the University of Warwick

• Junior Research Fellowships are highly competitive independent postdoctoral positions offered ​by colleges at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford. Some of them are posted ​here and here and others can be found by searching through the webpage of the individual college ​or jobs.ac.uk.

• Imperial College Research Fellowships are highly competitive independent postdoctoral positions

• Dirichlet Postdoctoral Fellowships are independent postdoctoral positions offered by the Berlin ​Mathematical School.

• Many mathematics jobs, mostly in the USA and Canada, can be found at mathjobs.org

• Many academic jobs, mostly in the UK, can be found at jobs.ac.uk

• Many mathematics jobs, mostly in Europe, can be found on the European Mathematical Society ​website

• Mathematical jobs within or outside of academia can be found at Mathhire.org

• A great resource for finding mathematics jobs, mostly in the USA, is the AWM Job Board


Postdoc Travel Funding

• The Mitacs Globalink Research Awards provide funding for senior undergraduates, graduate ​students and postdocs to undertake a 12- to 24-week research project in another country.

• Many conferences offer travel funding for students. For students in combinatorics, the SIAM ​Discrete Math Conference (held in even years) and the CanaDAM Conference (held in odd years) ​usually do. If you want to get travel funding, then you should probably plan to present a talk.

Teaching

CURRENT TEACHING


• Lecturer for Math 122: Logic and Foundations (Sections A03 and A04).


• Course Coordinator for Math 122: Logic and Foundations with Gary MacGillivray.


• Lecturer for Math 426/529: Extremal Combinatorics. Here is the webpage for the course. It is also ​being offered as a PIMS Network Wide Graduate Course. Anyone who would like to participate in the ​course remotely through Zoom can do so. Please e-mail me and I will send you the Zoom link.


FUTURE TEACHING


TBA


PAST TEACHING


University of Victoria


Second Term, 2023/2024:


• Lecturer for Math 498: Seminar and Independent Project.


First Term, 2023/2024:


• Lecturer for Math 151: Finite Mathematics (Sections A01 and A02). Here is a schedule of the lectures ​for Section A01 and Section A02.


• Course Coordinator for Math 151: Finite Mathematics.


• Lecturer for Math 498: Seminar and Independent Project.


First Term, 2022/2023:


• Lecturer for Math 122: Logic and Foundations (Sections A03 and A04). Here is a schedule of the ​lectures for Section A03 and Section A04. Here is a YouTube playlist of the lecture videos from the ​2021/2022 academic year.


• Lecturer for Math 492/529: Topics in Applied Mathematics/Discrete Mathematics (Extremal ​Combinatorics). Here is a schedule of the lectures and a link to the course notes. Here is a YouTube ​Playlist of the lecture videos from the 2020/2021 academic year. Now known as Math 426.


First Term, 2021/2022:


• Lecturer for Math 122: Logic and Foundations (Section A01 and Section A03). Here is a schedule of ​the lectures for Section A01 and Section A03. Here is a YouTube playlist of the lecture videos.


• Lecturer for Math 222: Discrete and Combinatorial Mathematics. Here is a schedule for the course.


Second Term, 2020/2021:


• Lecturer for Math 492/529: Topics in Applied Mathematics/Discrete Mathematics (Extremal ​Combinatorics). Here is a schedule of the lectures. Here is a YouTube Playlist of the lectures. Now ​known as Math 426.


• Lecturer for Math 222: Discrete and Combinatorial Mathematics. Here is a schedule of the lectures. ​Here is a YouTube Playlist of the lectures.


University of Warwick


Welcome Week 2019 (Week 0): Lecturer for MA9010 Fundamental Tools (Linear Algebra and ​Differential Equations).


Spring Term 2019 (Term 2): Lecturer for MA252 Combinatorial Optimisation. See the topics covered ​and schedule of the lectures.


Welcome Week 2018 (Week 0): Lecturer for MA9010 Fundamental Tools (Linear Algebra and ​Differential Equations).


ETH Zürich


Spring Semester 2017: Course Organizer for Analysis II for Mechanical Engineering and Material ​Science.


Autumn Semester 2016: Course Organizer for Analysis I for Mechanical Engineering and Material ​Science.


University of Oxford


Michaelmas Term 2015: Class Tutor for C8.3 Combinatorics.


Hilary Term 2015: Class Tutor for B8.5 Graph Theory.


Michaelmas Term 2014: Class Tutor for C8.3 Combinatorics.


Hilary Term 2014: Teaching Assistant for B8.5 Graph Theory.


Michaelmas Term 2013: Teaching Assistant for C8.3 Combinatorics.


Thompson Rivers University


2009-2011: Worked at the Mathematics Help Centre.

Online Combinatorics Talks and Lectures

Research Level:


• Will Perkins: On statistical mechanics methods in combinatorics at the CombGeo Lab at the ​Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.


• Woijciech Samotij: The Container Method at the 18th Midrasha Mathematicae at the Israel ​Institute for Advanced Study.


• Peter Keevash: The Existence of Designs at the 18th Midrasha Mathematicae at the Israel ​Institute for Advanced Study.


• Ehud Friedgut: Analysis of Boolean Functions on Graph Products, Dictatorships and Juntas at ​the 18th Midrasha Mathematicae at the Israel Institute for Advanced Study.


• Irit Dinur: Direct Products of Games and Graphs at the 18th Midrasha Mathematicae at the ​Israel Institute for Advanced Study.


• David Steurer: Sum of Squares Method at the 18th Midrasha Mathematicae at the Israel ​Institute for Advanced Study.


• Alexandru Nica: Combinatorial Aspects of Free Probability Theory at the 18th Midrasha ​Mathematicae at the Israel Institute for Advanced Study.


• Alexander Postnikov: Combinatorics of the Grassmanian at the 18th Midrasha Mathematicae ​at the Israel Institute for Advanced Study.


• Joel Hass: Knots at the 18th Midrasha Mathematicae at the Israel Institute for Advanced ​Study.


• Vitaly Bergelson: Mutually enriching connections between ergodic theory and combinatorics ​at CIRM.


• Andrew Marks: Descriptive graph combinatorics at CIRM.


• Jennifer Chayes and Christian Borgs: Graphons and graphexes as limits of sparse graphs at ​CIRM.


• Shachar Lovett: Information Theory in Combinatorics at the Simons Institute.


• Nati Linial: Some Geometric Perspectives on Combinatorics: High-Dimensional, Local and ​Local-to-Global at the Simons Institute.


Graduate Student Level:


• Timothy Gowers: Topics in Combinatorics at the University of Cambridge.


• Po-Shen Loh: Extremal Combinatorics at Carnegie Mellon University.


• Yufei Zhao: Graph Theory and Additive Combinatorics at MIT.


• Sang-il Oum: Combinatorics at KAIST.


• Luke Postle: Graph Theory at Waterloo.


• Luke Postle: Probabilistic Methods at Waterloo.


• Steve Butler: Spectral Graph Theory at Iowa State University.


• Ryan O'Donnell: Analysis of Boolean Functions at Carnegie Mellon University.


• Remco van der Hofstad: Complex Graphs and Networks at IMPA.


• Jonathan Noel: Extremal Combinatorics at the University of Victoria.


Introductory Level:


• Sang-il Oum: Introduction to Graph Theory at KAIST.


• Matt DeVos: Introduction to Graph Theory at SFU.


• Erik Demaine, Srini Devadas and Victor Costan: Introduction to Algorithms at MIT.


• Tom Trotter: Applied Combinatorics at Georgia Institute of Technology.


• Sami Assaf: Various Courses at USC.


• Trefor Bazett: Discrete Math at the University of Victoria.


• Jonathan Noel: Discrete and Combinatorial Mathematics at the University of Victoria.


• Jonathan Noel: Combinatorial Optimisation at the University of Warwick.

Contact

Office: David Turpin Building A435

E-mail: noelj@uvic.ca

Phone: (250) 472-5111