Curriculum Vitae

Jonathan Noel

Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics & Statistics, University of Victoria

David Turpin Building A435 · noelj@uvic.ca · jonathannoel.ca

Department profile Google Scholar arXiv MathSciNet YouTube
Appointments Grants Selected papers All papers Talks Supervision Teaching Service

Jonathan Noel is an Associate Professor in the Discrete Mathematics Group at the University of Victoria. His research is centered in extremal and probabilistic combinatorics, with connections to graph theory, probability, algorithms, statistics, and theoretical computer science.

Research areas

Current scope

Extremal combinatoricsCombinatorial limitsQuasirandomnessProbability theoryRamsey theoryGraph colouringPercolationAlgorithms and complexityDescriptive combinatorics
Appointments and education

Academic appointments

2025–present
Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics & Statistics, University of Victoria
2020–2025
Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics & Statistics, University of Victoria
2018–2020
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow and Warwick Zeeman Lecturer, University of Warwick
2017–2018
Research Fellow, University of Warwick (supervisor: Daniel Král)
2016–2017
Postdoctoral Researcher, ETH Zürich (supervisor: Benny Sudakov)
Education
2016
DPhil (PhD) in Mathematics, University of Oxford. Thesis: “Extremal Combinatorics, Graph Limits and Computational Complexity.” Adviser: Alexander Scott.
2013
MSc in Mathematics, McGill University. Thesis: “Choosability of Graphs with Bounded Order: Ohba’s Conjecture and Beyond.” Adviser: Bruce Reed.
2011
BSc (Hons) in Mathematics, Thompson Rivers University. Honours thesis: “The Invariant Subspace Problem.” Adviser: Robb Fry.
Funding and honours

Research grants, fellowships, and honours

Grants

  • NSERC Discovery Grant, “Large Combinatorial Objects: Extremal Structure and Quasirandomness,” PI, April 1, 2021–March 31, 2027, $26,000 per year.
  • NSERC Early Career Researcher Supplement, “Large Combinatorial Objects: Extremal Structure and Quasirandomness,” PI, April 1, 2021–March 31, 2022, $12,500.
  • PIMS support for the UVic Discrete Math Seminar in 2022–23, 2023–24, 2024–25, and 2025–26, total $6,600.

Honours and scholarships

  • Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship, 2018.
  • Clarendon Fund Scholarship, University of Oxford, 2013.
  • NSERC Postgraduate Scholarship (Doctoral), 2013, after declining the CGS-D in order to study at Oxford.
  • NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship (Master’s), 2011.
Publications and written work

Selected publications

Circle Squaring with Pieces of Small Boundary and Low Borel Complexity
with András Máthé and Oleg Pikhurko. Adv. Math. 484 (2026) Paper 110685
QuantaPopular MechanicsDiscover
Six Permutation Patterns Force Quasirandomness
with Gabriel Crudele and Peter J. Dukes. Discrete Anal. 2024, Paper No. 8, 26 pp.
Extremal Bounds for Bootstrap Percolation in the Hypercube
with Natasha Morrison. J. Combin. Theory Ser. A 156 (2018) 61–84
Weak regularity and finitely forcible graph limits
with Jacob W. Cooper, Tomáš Kaiser and Daniel Kráľ. Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 370 (6) (2018) 3833–3864
Cited in Lovász's Abel Prize Lecture
A Proof of a Conjecture of Ohba
with Bruce A. Reed and Hehui Wu. J. Graph Theory 79 (2) (2015) 86–102
Problem 50 in Graph Theory by Bondy and Murty

Full publication list

  1. 37. On Alternating 6-Cycles in Edge-Coloured Graphs. with Hao Chen. Submitted.
  2. 36. Maximizing Alternating Paths via Entropy. with Hao Chen and Felix Christian Clemen. Submitted.
  3. 35. Forcing Quasirandomness in a Regular Tournament. with Arjun Ranganathan and Lina M. Simbaqueba. Submitted.
  4. 34. Forcing quasirandomness with 4-point permutations. with Daniel Kráľ and Jae-baek Lee. Submitted.
  5. 33. Off-Diagonal Ramsey Multiplicity. with Elena Moss. Soon to be Submitted.
  6. 32. Circle Squaring with Pieces of Small Boundary and Low Borel Complexity. with András Máthé and Oleg Pikhurko. Adv. Math. 484 (2026) Paper 110685.
  7. 31. Disconnected Common Graphs via Supersaturation. with Jae-baek Lee. Accepted to Electron. J. Combin..
  8. 30. Common Pairs of Graphs. with Natalie Behague and Natasha Morrison. Combin. Probab. Comput. 34 (5) (2025) 649–670.
  9. 29. Sidorenko-Type Inequalities for Pairs of Trees. with Natalie Behague, Gabriel Crudele and Lina M. Simbaqueba. Random Structures & Algorithms 67 (1) (2025) Paper e70026.
  10. 28. Turán Colourings in Off-Diagonal Ramsey Multiplicity. with Joseph Hyde and Jae-baek Lee. Electron. J. Combin. 32(2) (2025) Paper No. 2.14.
  11. 27. An Approximate Counting Version of the Multidimensional Szemerédi Theorem. with Natalie Behague, Joseph Hyde, Natasha Morrison and Ashna Wright. Combinatorica 45 (4) (2025) Paper 42.
  12. 26. Off-Diagonal Commonality of Graphs via Entropy. with Natalie Behague and Natasha Morrison. SIAM J. Discrete Math. 38 (3) (2024) 2335–2360.
  13. 25. Six Permutation Patterns Force Quasirandomness. with Gabriel Crudele and Peter J. Dukes. Discrete Anal. 2024, Paper No. 8, 26 pp..
  14. 24. Extremal Bounds for Three-Neighbour Bootstrap Percolation in Dimensions Two and Three. with Peter J. Dukes and Abel E. Romer. SIAM J. Discrete Math. 37 (3) (2023) 2088–2125.
  15. 23. On the Running Time of Hypergraph Bootstrap Percolation. with Arjun Ranganathan. Electron. J. Combin. 30 (2) (2023) #2.46.
  16. 22. Density maximizers of layered permutations. with Adam Kabela, Daniel Kráľ and Théo Pierron. Electron. J. Combin. 29 (3) (2022) #3.56.
  17. 21. Recolouring homomorphisms to triangle-free reflexive graphs. with Jae-baek Lee and Mark Siggers. Journal of Algebraic Combinatorics (2022) 21 pages.
  18. 20. Non-bipartite k-common graphs. with Daniel Kráľ, Sergey Norin, Jan Volec and Fan Wei. Combinatorica 42 (2022) 87–114.
  19. 18. A Sharp Threshold for Bootstrap Percolation in a Random Hypergraph. with Natasha Morrison. Electron. J. Probab. 26 (2021) 1–85.
  20. 17. Cyclic Coloring of Plane Graphs with Maximum Face Size 16 and 17. with Zdeněk Dvořák, Michael Hebdige, Filip Hlásek and Daniel Kráľ. European J. Combin. 94 (2021) 103287.
  21. 16. Bounding the number of cycles in a graph in terms of its degree sequence. with Zdeněk Dvořák, Natasha Morrison, Sergey Norin and Luke Postle. European J. Combin. 91 (2021) 103206.
  22. 15. Cycles of length three and four in tournaments. with Timothy F. N. Chan, Andrzej Grzesik and Daniel Kráľ. J. Combin. Theory Ser. A 175 (2020) 105276.
  23. 14. Characterization of quasirandom permutations by a pattern sum. with Timothy F. N. Chan, Daniel Kráľ, Yanitsa Pehova, Maryam Sharifzadeh and Jan Volec. Random Structures & Algorithms 57(4) (2020) 920–939.
  24. 13. Reconfiguring Graph Homomorphisms on the Sphere. with Jae-baek Lee and Mark Siggers. European J. Combin. 86 (2020) 103086.
  25. 12. Graph Homomorphism Reconfiguration and Frozen H-Colourings. with Richard C. Brewster, Jae-baek Lee, Benjamin Moore and Mark Siggers. J. Graph Theory 94 (3) (2020) 398–420.
  26. 11. Finitely forcible graphons with an almost arbitrary structure. with Daniel Kráľ, László Miklós Lovász and Jakub Sosnovec. Discrete Anal. Paper 9 (2019) 36 pages.
  27. 10. Extremal Bounds for Bootstrap Percolation in the Hypercube. with Natasha Morrison. J. Combin. Theory Ser. A 156 (2018) 61–84.
  28. 9. Weak regularity and finitely forcible graph limits. with Jacob W. Cooper, Tomáš Kaiser and Daniel Kráľ. Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 370 (6) (2018) 3833–3864.
  29. 8. Supersaturation in Posets and Applications Involving the Container Method. with Alex Scott and Benny Sudakov. J. Combin. Theory Ser. A 154 (2018) 247–284.
  30. 7. Saturation in the Hypercube and Bootstrap Percolation. with Natasha Morrison and Alex Scott. Combin. Probab. Comput. 26 (1) (2017) 78–98.
  31. 6. A Dichotomy Theorem for Circular Colouring Reconfiguration. with Richard C. Brewster, Sean McGuinness and Benjamin Moore. Theoret. Comput. Sci. 639 (2016) 1–13.
  32. 5. Mixing Homomorphisms, Recolorings, and Extending Circular Precolorings. with Richard C. Brewster. J. Graph Theory 80 (3) (2015) 173–198.
  33. 4. A Proof of a Conjecture of Ohba. with Bruce A. Reed and Hehui Wu. J. Graph Theory 79 (2) (2015) 86–102.
  34. 3. Beyond Ohba's Conjecture: A bound on the choice number of k-chromatic graphs with n vertices. with Douglas B. West, Hehui Wu and Xuding Zhu. European J. Combin. 43 (2015) 295–305.
  35. 2. On Saturated k-Sperner Systems. with Natasha Morrison and Alex Scott. Electron. J. Combin. 21 (3) (2014) #P3.22.
  36. 1. Extending precolourings of circular cliques. with Richard C. Brewster. Discrete Math. 312 (1) (2012) 35–41.

Course notes and public-facing publications

Talks and presentations

Conference and seminar talks

Listed in reverse chronological order.

  • Invited seminar talk, 2026, Less Than Half of All Oriented Paths Are Anti-Sidorenko. Combinatorics Seminar. University College London
  • Invited conference talk, 2025, Less Than Half of All Oriented Paths Are Anti-Sidorenko. Winter Workshop in Combinatorics at LSE. London School of Economics & Political Science.
  • Contributed conference session talk, 2025. Maximizing the number of alternating walks in an edge-coloured graph. 10th biennial Canadian Discrete and Algorithmic Mathematics Conference (CanaDAM 2025). Minisymposium on Interdisciplinary Extremal Combinatorics, Ottawa, Ontario.
  • Invited colloquium talk, 2025. Squaring the Circle with Simple Pieces. University of Chile, Department of Engineering Mathematics Colloquium, Santiago, Chile.
  • Contributed conference talk, 2024. An Approximate Counting Version of the Multidimensional Szemerédi Theorem. Discrete Math Days 2024, Alcalá de Henares, Spain.
  • Invited conference session talk, 2024. Off-Diagonal Ramsey Multiplicity. 2024 Spring Western Sectional Meeting of the American Mathematical Society. Special Session on Extremal Combinatorics and Connections, San Francisco, California.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2023. Some Trees are Always More Plentiful than Others. Probability and Dynamics Seminar, University of Victoria, Canada.
  • Invited conference session talk, 2023. Six Permutation Patterns Force Quasirandomness. 9th biennial Canadian Discrete and Algorithmic Mathematics Conference (CanaDAM 2023). Minisymposium on Combinatorics and Algebra, Winnipeg, Manitoba.
  • Invited colloquium talk, 2023. Squaring the Circle with Simple Pieces. Masaryk University Mathematics Colloquium, Brno, Czech Republic.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2023. Minimizing copies of red copies of one graph and blue copies of another. Atlantic Canada Graph Theory Seminar, Online (Zoom).
  • Invited outreach talk, 2022. Solving HUGE Problems Quickly. IMAGINING UVic: Inspiring Mathematical Growth and Intuition in Girls, University of Victoria, Canada.
  • Invited conference talk, 2022. Common pairs of graphs. A Conference in Celebration of Bruce Reed’s Mathematical Career, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
  • Contributed seminar talk, 2022. Squaring the Circle with Graph Theory. Discrete Math Seminar, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2021. Forcing quasirandomness in permutations. Algebraic Combinatorics Seminar, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada, Online (Zoom).
  • Invited seminar talk, 2021. Forcing quasirandomness in permutations. SCMS Combinatorics Seminar, Shanghai, China.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2020. Non-bipartite k-common graphs. Extremal and Probabilistic Combinatorics Webinar, Online (Zoom).
  • Invited seminar talk, 2020. Cycles of length three and four in tournaments. Combinatorial Theory Seminar, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2020. Tarski’s Circle Squaring Problem. Math Club Seminar, Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, Canada.
  • Invited conference session talk, 2019. Forcing Quasirandomness in Permutations. 32nd Brazilian Mathematics Colloquium. Thematic Session on Combinatorics, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
  • Contributed conference talk, 2019. Reconfiguring Graph Homomorphisms. International Workshop on Combinatorial Reconfiguration (CoRe), Aussois, France.
  • Invited conference session talk, 2019. Cycles of length three and four in tournaments. 7th biennial Canadian Discrete and Algorithmic Mathematics Conference (CanaDAM 2019). Minisymposium on Analytic and Probabilistic Techniques in Combinatorics, Vancouver, Canada.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2019. Cycles of length three and four in tournaments. Joint DIMEA and FORMELA Seminar, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2019. Cycles of length three and four in tournaments. Combinatorics Seminar, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2019. Bootstrap percolation in high dimensions and related results. Statistical Mechanics Seminar, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2019. Cycles of length three and four in tournaments. Mathematical Sciences Seminar, Birkbeck University of London, London, United Kingdom.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2018. Supersaturation in Posets. Discrete Mathematics and Optimization Seminar, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2018. Supersaturation in Posets. Combinatorics Study Group Seminar, Queen Mary University of London, London, United Kingdom.
  • Invited conference session talk, 2018. Reconfiguring Graph Colourings and Homomorphisms. SIAM Conference on Discrete Mathematics (SIAM DM18). Minisymposium on Reconfiguration Problems, Denver, United States.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2018. Reconfiguring Graph Colourings and Homomorphisms. Combinatorics Seminar, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2017. How to Spread a Rumour in a High-Dimensional Network. Mathematics Seminar, Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, Canada.
  • Contributed conference session talk, 2017. Bootstrap percolation in a random subhypergraph. Random Structures and Algorithms (RS&A), Gniezno, Poland.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2017. The Best Way to Spread a Rumour in a High-Dimensional Grid. Combinatorial Group Seminar, Czech Academy of Science, Prague, Czech Republic.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2017. The Best Way to Spread a Rumour in a High-Dimensional Grid. Discrete Math Seminar, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Republic of Korea.
  • Invited conference talk, 2017. Bootstrap percolation in a random subhypergraph. Structure in Graphs and Matroids (SiGMa).
  • Invited seminar talk, 2017. Antichains in Random Posets via Supersaturation and Containers. Probability Seminar, Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse, France.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2016. Supersaturation in Posets and Applications Involving the Container Method. Mittagsseminar, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
  • Invited conference session talk, 2016. Reconfiguring Graph Homomorphisms and Colourings. SIAM Conference on Discrete Mathematics (SIAM DM16). Minisymposium on Combinatorial Reconfiguration, Atlanta, United States.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2016. Extremal Bounds for Bootstrap Percolation in the Hypercube. Combinatorics Seminar, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2016. Extremal Bounds for Bootstrap Percolation in the Hypercube. Discrete Mathematics and Optimization Seminar, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2015. Extremal Bounds for Bootstrap Percolation in the Hypercube. Graph Theory Seminar, University of West Bohemia, Pilsen, Czech Republic.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2015. Extremal Bounds for Bootstrap Percolation in the Hypercube. Noon Lecture, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2014. Choosability of Graphs With Bounded Order. Combinatorics Seminar, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom.
  • Invited conference session talk, 2014. Choosability of Graphs With Bounded Order. SIAM Conference on Discrete Mathematics (SIAM DM14). Minisymposium on Graph Colouring, Minneapolis, United States.
  • Contributed conference session talk, 2014. List Colourings of Graphs on a Bounded Number of Vertices. Summit:240, Budapest, Hungary.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2013. Choosability of Graphs With Bounded Order. Mathematics Seminar, Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, Canada.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2013. Choosability of Graphs With Bounded Order. Noon Lecture, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2013. Choosability of Graphs With Bounded Order. Discrete Math Seminar, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada.
  • Contributed conference talk, 2013. Choosability of Graphs With Bounded Order. Seventh Czech-Slovak International Symposium on Graph Theory, Combinatorics, Algorithms and Applications, Kosice, Slovakia.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2012. Choosability of Graphs With Bounded Order. Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, China.
  • Contributed conference talk, 2012. Choosability of Graphs With Bounded Order. Thailand-Japan Joint Conference on Computational Geometry and Graphs (TJJCCGG). Bangkok, Thailand.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2012. Choosability of Graphs With Bounded Order. South China Normal University. Guangzhou, China.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2012. Choosability of Graphs With Bounded Order. Kyoto University. Kyoto, Japan.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2012. Choosability of Graphs With Bounded Order. Keio University. Yokohama, Japan.
  • Invited seminar talk, 2012. Choosability of Graphs With Bounded Order. National Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics (IMPA). Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Presentations by collaborators and students on joint work

  • Simbaqueba, L. M. Quasirandom forcing in regular tournaments, 2025, Discrete Mathematics Meeting 2025, Graz, Austria.
  • Lee, J.-B. Invited conference talk, 2025, 1st Early Career Workshop in Extremal Combinatorics, Daejeon, South Korea.
  • Simbaqueba, L. M. Invited conference session talk, 2025. Quasirandom forcing in regular tournaments. 10th biennial Canadian Discrete and Algorithmic Mathematics Conference (CanaDAM 2025). Minisymposium on Graph Structure and Decompositions, Ottawa, Ontario.
  • Lee, J.-B. Invited conference session talk, 2025, Joint Mathematics Meetings of the American Mathematical Society, Special Session on Graphs, Hypergraphs, and Extremal Combinatorics, Seattle, USA.
  • Lee, J.-B. Contributed conference talk, 2024. Disconnected common graphs via supersaturation. Discrete Math Days 2024, Alcalá de Henares, Spain.
  • Simbaqueba, L. M. Contributed conference poster, 2024. Sidorenko-type inequalities for Trees. Discrete Math Days 2024, Alcalá de Henares, Spain.
  • Lee, J.-B. Contributed conference talk, 2024. Disconnected common graphs via supersaturation. Summit:280, Budapest, Hungary.
  • Simbaqueba, L. M. Contributed conference talk, 2024. Sidorenko-type inequalities for Trees. Summit:280, Budapest, Hungary.
  • Simbaqueba, L. M. Contributed seminar talk, 2024. Sidorenko-type inequalities for Trees. University of Victoria Discrete Math Seminar, Victoria, British Columbia.
  • Wright, A. Contributed seminar talk, 2024. Counting X-free sets. University of Victoria Discrete Math Seminar, Victoria, British Columbia.
  • Behague, N. Invited conference session talk, 2023. Common Pairs of Graphs. 9th biennial Canadian Discrete and Algorithmic Mathematics Conference (CanaDAM 2023). Minisymposium on Combinatorics and Algebra, Winnipeg, Manitoba.
  • Lee, J.-B. Invited conference session talk, 2023. Disconnected common graphs via supersaturation. 9th biennial Canadian Discrete and Algorithmic Mathematics Conference (CanaDAM 2023). Minisymposium on Combinatorics and Algebra, Winnipeg, Manitoba.
  • Lee, J.-B. Invited seminar talk, 2022. Disconnected common graphs via supersaturation. Joint DIMEA and FORMELA Seminar, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.
  • Crudele, G. Contributed seminar talk, 2022. Independence Testing with Permutations. University of Victoria Probability and Dynamics Seminar, Victoria, British Columbia.
  • Moss, E. Contributed conference talk, 2022. Flag Algebras and Goodman’s Bound. Canadian Undergraduate Mathematics Conference, Quebec, Quebec.
  • Crudele, G. Contributed conference talk, 2022. Six Permutations Force Quasirandomness. Canadian Undergraduate Mathematics Conference, Quebec, Quebec.
  • Ranganathan, A. Contributed conference talk, 2022. Maximum Running Time of Hypergraph Bootstrap Percolation. Student Symposium in Combinatorics, Online.
  • Romer, A. Contributed seminar talk, 2021. 3-Neighbor Bootstrap Percolation in Three Dimensions. University of Victoria Discrete Math Seminar, Victoria, British Columbia.
Students, postdocs, and mentoring

Supervision and training

Postdoctoral supervision

  • Felix Christian Clemen, PIMS Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Victoria, January 2025–December 2027. Co-supervised with Natasha Morrison.
  • Joseph Hyde, University of Victoria, August 2022–June 2024. Co-supervised with Natasha Morrison and Bruce Reed. Now a postdoc at King’s College London.
  • Natalie Behague, University of Victoria, January 2022–November 2023. Co-supervised with Natasha Morrison. Now an Assistant Professor at Dublin City University.

Graduate supervision

  • Jae-baek Lee, PhD, The Ramsey Multiplicity Problem, University of Victoria, 2021–2025. Co-supervised with Gary MacGillivray. Now a postdoc at Yonsei University.
  • Lina Maria Simbaqueba Marin, MSc, Quasirandom forcing in Regular Tournaments, University of Victoria, 2023–2025. Now a PhD student at Leipzig University.
  • Ashna Wright, MSc, Counting X-free Sets, University of Victoria, 2022–2024. Co-supervised with Natasha Morrison.
  • Arjun Ranganathan, MSc, Inducing Graphs, Hypergraphs, and Tournaments, IISER Pune, 2023–2024. Co-supervised with Matthew Kwan. Now a PhD student at University College London.
  • Abel Romer, MSc, Tight Bounds on 3-Neighbor Bootstrap Percolation, University of Victoria, 2020–2022. Co-supervised with Peter Dukes.
  • Vincent Pfenninger, Master’s thesis, Graph Bootstrap Processes in Complete Bipartite Graphs, ETH Zürich, 2017. Co-supervised with Benny Sudakov. Now a postdoc at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Supervisory committee memberships

  • Kirwin Hampshire, PhD supervisory committee, internal member, Mathematics, 2025–present.
  • Kevin Hsu, PhD supervisory committee, external member, Computer Science, 2023–2025.
  • Aaron Slobodin, PhD supervisory committee, internal member, Mathematics, 2022–2025.
  • Fay Ye, PhD supervisory committee, internal member, Mathematics, 2020–2025.

Undergraduate research supervision

  • Finlay Webb, Mitacs Globalink Internship, University of Edinburgh, May–August 2026 (confirmed).
  • Stacey Sharfenberg, VKURA application, Summer 2026 (application pending).
  • Stacey Sharfenberg, University of Victoria, Summer Research Student, June–August 2025.
  • Christopher Turton, University of Victoria, NSERC USRA Summer Research Student, May–August 2024.
  • Elena Moss, University of Victoria, NSERC USRA Summer Research Student, May–August 2023. Now a PhD student at the University of Glasgow.
  • Gabriel Crudele, Six Permutation Patterns Force Quasirandomness, University of Victoria, Summer Research Student, May–August 2022. Co-supervised with Peter Dukes. Now a PhD student at McGill University.
  • Elena Moss, Off-Diagonal Ramsey Multiplicity, University of Victoria, NSERC USRA Summer Research Student, May–August 2022. Now a PhD student at the University of Glasgow.
  • Lina Maria Simbaqueba Marin, Sidorenko-Type Inequalities for Pairs of Trees, University of Victoria, Mitacs Globalink Research Intern from Universidad Nacional de Colombia, May–August 2022. Now a PhD student at Leipzig University.
  • Gabriel Crudele, JCURA, September 2021–June 2022.
  • Arjun Ranganathan, On the Running Time of Hypergraph Bootstrap Percolation, Research Intern from IISER Pune, June 2021–May 2022. Now a PhD student at University College London.
  • Joe Wall, Saturation and Weak Saturation, University of Warwick URSS programme, Summer 2018. Completed his PhD at Lancaster University in 2024.

Undergraduate theses and projects

  • Tania Yorke, University of Victoria, MATH 498, 2025/2026. Soon to begin a Master’s degree at McGill University.
  • Christopher Turton, University of Victoria, MATH 498, 2024/2025.
  • Gabriel Crudele, University of Victoria, MATH 498, 2022/2023. Now a PhD student at McGill University.
  • Adam Finchett, Graph Limits, Norms and Applications, 4th Year Essay, University of Warwick, 2019/2020. Now a Senior Data Scientist at Schroders Personal Wealth.
  • Rachel Hardgrave, Classical Theorems in List Colouring, 3rd Year Essay, University of Warwick, 2019/2020.
  • Matt Pike, Problems in Bootstrap Percolation, 4th Year Essay, University of Warwick, 2018/2019.
  • Sophia Werner, Semi-Definite Programming, 3rd Year Essay, University of Warwick, 2018/2019.
  • Stefan Lochau, Entropy and Linear Programming Methods for Counting Matchings and Independent Sets in Graphs, Bachelor Thesis, ETH Zürich, Autumn 2016. Co-supervised with Benny Sudakov. Now a software engineer at Cudos AG.

Teaching mentorship

  • Akina Kuperus, teaching mentor for a sessional instructor position, September–December 2023. Now a PhD student at the University of Victoria.
Teaching and course development

Teaching record and open resources

Course development and innovation

  • Developed MATH 426/529 Extremal Combinatorics and MATH 428/529 Discrete Optimization.
  • Built open PreTeXt course environments with lecture notes, assignments, embedded lecture videos, and hundreds of exercises.
  • Both courses have been offered through the PIMS Network-Wide Course programme.
  • Every non-reading course taught has been fully recorded at least once and made publicly available on YouTube.
  • Participated in the UVic Curriculum Retreat (2025) and Capstone Working Group, and helped spearhead the department’s undergraduate research webpage.

University of Victoria

2025/2026

  • MATH 122 — Logic and Foundations (Sections A03 and A04).
  • MATH 428/529 — Discrete Optimization.
  • MATH 529 — Reading course on Extremal Combinatorics, Optimization, and Descriptive Set Theory (planned).
  • Course coordinator for MATH 122.

2024/2025

  • MATH 122 — Logic and Foundations (Sections A03 and A04).
  • MATH 426/529 — Extremal Combinatorics.
  • MATH 529 — Reading course on Graph Homomorphisms (co-taught with Jing Huang).
  • Shared course coordination for MATH 122 with Gary MacGillivray.

2023/2024

  • MATH 498 — Seminar and Independent Project.
  • MATH 151 — Finite Mathematics (Sections A01 and A02).
  • Course coordinator for MATH 151.

2022/2023

  • MATH 122 — Logic and Foundations (Sections A03 and A04).
  • MATH 492/529 — Topics in Applied Mathematics / Discrete Mathematics (Extremal Combinatorics).

2021/2022

  • MATH 122 — Logic and Foundations (Sections A01 and A03).
  • MATH 222 — Discrete and Combinatorial Mathematics.

2020/2021

  • MATH 492/529 — Extremal Combinatorics.
  • MATH 222 — Discrete and Combinatorial Mathematics.

Other institutions

University of Warwick

  • Spring Term 2019 — MA252, Combinatorial Optimisation.
  • Welcome Week 2019 — MA9010, Fundamental Tools (Linear Algebra and Differential Equations).
  • Welcome Week 2018 — 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 — Mathematics Help Centre.

Course coordination

  • MATH 122, University of Victoria, 2025/2026 (188 students coordinated across sections).
  • MATH 122, University of Victoria, 2024/2025, shared with Gary MacGillivray (252 students coordinated).
  • MATH 151, University of Victoria, 2023/2024 (435 students coordinated).
Service, editorial work, and professional activity

Service and outreach

Editorial work and reviewing

  • Associate Editor for the SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics (2026–current).
  • Contributor of 13 reviews to AMS Mathematical Reviews / MathSciNet since 2017.
  • Maintainer of the CanaDAM Discrete Mathematics Conference Directory.
Refereed journals: Advances in Combinatorics, Annales de l’Institut Henri Poincaré (B) Probabilités et Statistiques, Combinatorica, Combinatorics, Probability and Computing, Compositio Mathematica, Discrete Applied Mathematics, Discrete Mathematics, Electronic Journal of Combinatorics, European Journal of Combinatorics, Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series B, Journal of Graph Theory, Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society, Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, Random Structures & Algorithms, SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics.

Professional memberships and committees

  • Canadian Mathematical Society (since 2020).
  • Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (since 2020).
  • PIMS Network-Wide Courses Committee (from 2026).

Conference organization

  • Executive Committee member, CanaDAM, 2021–2027; Chair for CanaDAM 2027, Kelowna, June 14–18, 2027.
  • Program Committee member for ASIACOMB 2026, Daejeon, August 24–28, 2026.
  • Organizer of the minisymposium “Interdisciplinary Extremal Combinatorics,” CanaDAM 2025.
  • Program Committee member for CanaDAM 2025.
  • Webmaster for CanaDAM 2025 (December 2023–July 2025).
  • Organizer of the minisymposium “Extremal Combinatorics and Beyond,” CanaDAM 2023.
  • Program Committee member for SODA 2022.
  • Co-organizer (with Shagnik Das, Carla Groenland, and Yanitsa Pehova) of the Young Researchers in Combinatorics workshop; online in 2020 and in-person at ICMS Edinburgh in July 2022; secured £24,800 in funding and helped establish the event as a biennial series.
  • Co-organizer (with Ramanujan Sridharan) of the DIMAP seminar, University of Warwick, October 2018–July 2020.
  • Co-organizer (with Natasha Morrison) of the Bootstrap Percolation minisymposium at CanaDAM 2019.
  • Program Committee member for LAGOS 2019.

Departmental service

  • Website and Social Media Committee, Department of Mathematics & Statistics, University of Victoria, October 2025–June 2026.
  • Graduate Committee, Department of Mathematics & Statistics, University of Victoria, July 2025–June 2026.
  • Graduate Committee, Department of Mathematics & Statistics, University of Victoria, July 2024–June 2025.
  • Co-organizer of the UVic Discrete Math Seminar, 2022–present; secured PIMS support totaling $6,600 across 2022–23, 2023–24, 2024–25, and 2025–26.
  • Appointments and Reappointments Committee, July 2023–June 2024.
  • Contests and Awards Committee, July 2022–June 2023.
  • Hiring committee member for a postdoctoral researcher supervised by Hong Liu, University of Warwick, December 2019–January 2020.
  • Hiring committee member for a postdoctoral researcher supervised by Daniel Král, Masaryk University, January–May 2019.
  • Organizer of departmental colloquia including talks by József Balogh (2026) and Daniel Král (2024).

Grant proposal review

  • Reviewed a grant proposal for the Czech Science Foundation in 2025.
  • Reviewed a grant proposal for joint funding from the German Research Foundation and the National Science and Technology Council of Taiwan in 2024.
  • Reviewed an NSERC Discovery Grant proposal in 2024.
  • Reviewed a grant proposal for the National Science Center of Poland in 2017.

Visiting scientists hosted

  • Daniel Král and Lina Maria Simbaqueba (Leipzig University), research visit to UVic, March 2026.
  • Co-host for József Balogh’s research visit to UVic in 2026.
  • Hao Chen (USTC), visiting PhD student at UVic, November 2024–November 2025.
  • Bruce Reed (Academia Sinica), hosted at UVic in July–August 2024; gave a UVic Discrete Math Seminar talk.
  • Paweł Prałat (Toronto Metropolitan University), hosted at UVic, July 13–22, 2024.
  • Daniel Král (Masaryk University), hosted at UVic, May 7–9, 2024; visit included a department colloquium.
  • Alexander Clow (Simon Fraser University), hosted at UVic for two weeks in February 2024.
  • Hosted or co-hosted 20+ single-day visits by UVic Discrete Math Seminar speakers.
  • Nima Hoda (ENS Paris) and Yelena Yuditsky (Ben Gurion University), hosted at the University of Warwick in January–February 2020 with Leverhulme support.

Outreach and public engagement

  • Outreach talk, “Solving HUGE Problems Quickly,” IMAGINING UVic seminar series, November 2022.
  • Donga Science (Korea) comic for children based on the circle-squaring paper with Oleg Pikhurko and András Máthé, 2022.
  • Szemerédi Regularity Lemma outreach video, recorded in April 2024 with Lina Simbaqueba and Jae-baek Lee.