Luke Conners

Welcome to my website! I’m a 6th year PhD student in Mathematics at UNC – Chapel Hill, where my advisor is David Rose. I received a B.S. in Mathematics and a B.A. in Physics from Rice University in 2019. I’m interested in categorification, quantum link invariants, and low-dimensional topology. My CV is here.

My office is Phillips Hall 362. My email address is lconners [at] live [dot] unc [dot] edu.

My research is currently supported by funding awarded to David Rose by NSF CAREER Grant DMS-2144463 and Simons Foundation Collaboration Grant 523992. I was recently supported by UNC’s Summer Graduate Research Fellowship.

Research

  1. Row-Column Mirror Symmetry for Colored Torus Knot Homology. Submitted for publication; under revision.
  2. Fray functors and equivalence of colored HOMFLYPT homologies. Submitted for publication.

Teaching and Mentoring

I’ve taught the following courses at UNC:

  • Summer 2022 – Math 347 (Linear Algebra)
  • Spring 2022 – MATH 381 (Discrete Mathematics)
  • Fall 2021 – MATH 383 (Differential Equations)
  • Summer 2021 – MATH 232 (Calculus II)
  • Spring 2021 – MATH 117 (Aspects of Finite Mathematics)

From 2021 to 2023, I also helped organize UNC’s Directed Reading Program.

Upcoming (and very recent) Seminars and Travel

Come say hello if you see me! Feel free to email me if you would like me to come speak in your seminar series (or if you would like to go hiking before or after an upcoming conference).

I also frequently speak at UNC’s Graduate Math Association seminar and jGMRT.

Personal

My wife, Emma Crawford, is also a mathematician working in Natalie Stanley’s lab at UNC. You can find her work on bioRxiv here.

I currently serve on the Executive Board of UNC’s Graduate and Professional Student Government.

In a past life, I played trumpet in the jazz fusion combo Steve Cox’s Beard. You can find our music on SoundCloud, Spotify, and Apple Music. I also played in Five Foot Five (before they recorded this album), Colts Drum and Bugle Corps, and The Cavaliers Drum and Bugle Corps.