Current Interests:

My thesis at U.C. Berkeley dealt with Galois representations associated to modular forms. Since then, however, my work has gravitated more toward the p-adic geometry of modular curves. In particular, my primary focus for the first several years out was on computing the stable reduction of the modular curve X0(pn) at the prime p. Due to the work of various other people, this had been known for n<3 since about 1990. Robert Coleman and I computed the stable reduction of X0(p3) in a paper for ANT (see below). Here are some reasonable pictures of the associated Stable Reduction Graphs. As is often the case in math, our abstract work was motivated by many explicit examples, and a few of these have been published as well (see below).

Recently, others have made significant progress on the stable reduction problem. Most notably, Jared Weinstein has in some sense solved the problem for all n, but from the "local Langlands" perspective. Takahiro Tsushima has also made significant advances using the methods of Coleman-McMurdy. This has prompted me to shift gears somewhat into the area of overconvergent modular forms. My background in rigid-analysis and stable reduction of modular curves gives me a slightly different perspective on this field, and I'm hopeful that as a result I will be able to bring some new insight. A first paper on the U7 operator (joint with Lloyd Kilford) has now appeared in the LMS JCM (see below).

I also have an enduring interest in explicit equations for modular curves. At some point I hope to publish a semi-expository paper on the various methods for obtaining explicit equations which I have come across and/or developed over the years. My lecture notes on eta product models from the Heilbronn Workshop (see below) have some very useful formulas which were actually coded up by David Loeffler for a SAGE module which comes with the standard download. Here is a table with some Equations for X0(N) for a few small values of N (along with useful formulas for moduli-theoretic maps).


Research Papers:



Notes and Slides from Recent Talks: