Zach Norwood
Navigation.
About.
I am a postdoc in the UNL Math Department.
From Fall 2019 to Summer 2022, I was a postdoc in the math department at the University of Michigan.
During the academic year 2018–2019, I was at Cornell, where I worked with Justin Moore.
In June 2018 I finished my PhD at UCLA under the supervision of Itay Neeman. I was there starting in Fall 2012. Some relics — probably of only historical value — from my time there can be found on this page.
During the academic year 2011–2012 I did Part III math(s) at Cambridge, supported by a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. While there I was the ringleader of the 'Set Theory Reading Club', a small group of students who pursued a non-lecture course in set theory under the guidance of Thomas Forster. In the interest of historical preservation I keep some old materials related to this and other Part III endeavors in the attic, here.
In 2011 I graduated with a BA in Mathematics from UNL. Under the supervision of Roger Wiegand, I wrote an Honors thesis about a topic in combinatorial commutative algebra that is lost to history. Even earlier than that, I did an REU at Indiana University with Allan L. Edmonds.
Email:
znorwood2@unl.edu
Office: Avery Hall 226.
You will not find me on any of the social media. If you encounter someone on Facebook or Tweeter etc. claiming to be me, then you have found an imposter.
Teaching.
(If you are a student, you are in the wrong place. Go to Canvas.)
UNL.
- Spring 2024 (expected).
- Math 450: Combinatorics.
- Faculty convener for Math 103.
- Fall 2023.
- Math 208, section 450.
- Math 487: Probability Theory.
- Faculty convener for Math 208.
- Faculty convener for Math 103.
- Spring 2023.
- Math 325: Elementary Analysis.
- Math 423: Complex Analysis.
- Faculty convener for Math 103.
- Fall 2022.
- Math 208, sections 150 and 250.
- Faculty convener for Math 103.
Michigan.
- Spring 2022 (the first summer session at U-M).
- Math 451: "Advanced Calculus I," which means real analysis
- Winter 2022.
- Math 416: Theory of Algorithms
- Math 555: Intro to Complex Variables
- LoG(M) project co-mentored with Maria Han Vega: Visualizing Algorithms and Large Datasets.
- Fall 2021.
- Math 217: Linear Algebra
- Math 481: Intro to Mathematical Logic
- Winter 2021.
- Math 416: Theory of Algorithms
- Math 684: Recursion Theory
- LoG(M) project co-mentored with Iian Smythe: Cataloguing Cardinal Characteristics of the Continuum.
- Fall 2020.
- Math 217: Linear Algebra
- Math 481: Intro to Mathematical Logic
- Winter 2020.
- Math 416: Theory of Algorithms (questionnaire)
- Math 525: Probability Theory (Math 525 questionnaire)
- Fall 2019.
- Math 115. (There is also Canvas.)
Cornell.
UCLA.
While a grad student at UCLA, I taught both as the instructor of record and as a TA. Some old materials from those courses are filed away on this page.
Probably most valuable to non-historians are exercise sheets from when I taught the UCLA Logic Summer School,
- in 2015 on First-order Logic and Incompleteness, and
- in 2016 on Forcing and Independence in Set Theory.
Research.
I was trained as a logician; much of my thesis work focused on definable Ramsey theory and its interactions with large-cardinal hypotheses and determinacy. Any Ramsey-theoretic question is likely to be interesting to me.
I also have a secondary interest in machine learning, mostly as a curious observer. At Michigan I co-mentored a LoG(M) project about visualizing ML algorithms.
Proof formalization (under construction).
Until I have time to put something else here, take a look at the Archive of Formal Proofs.
Undergrad research.
At Michigan I supervised two REU projects, in addition to the LoG(M) projects mentioned above.
In Summer 2021, Jonah Nan studied Polychromatic Ramsey Properties of Ideals and produced several cool theorems. We are working on a joint paper to submit for publication. Jonah went on to win a Goldwater Scholarship.
In Summer 2020, Zekun Jia studied Ramsey Theory in Models of Set Theory Where the Axiom of Choice Fails and produced several cool results.
Papers (under construction).
- Definable happy families and other coideals on the integers, in preparation.
- A note on the Tree Reflection Principle and reshaping. [pdf] (Will probably appear as part of a later paper.)
- (with Itay Neeman) Coding along trees and generic absoluteness, to appear in the JSL. [pdf]
- (with Itay Neeman) Happy and mad families in \(L({\mathbb R})\), J. Symb. Log. 83 (2018), no. 2, 572–597. [pdf] [MR 3835078]
Miscellany.
- Looking for trail-running in Nebraska? Check out GOATZ. They put on several events.
- A list of set theorists' homepages.
- QWERTY getting you down? Learn about Colemak here. (I have been using the Colemak keyboard layout since late 2009, when Stephen Hartke, who I think was the UNL Math Club faculty sponsor at the time, offhandedly mentioned it to me.)
- Your OS getting you down? Try Arch Linux here.
- Some old Part III stuff (in particular, notes from a commutative algebra course) can be found here.
Non-mathematical hobbies of mine include reading, running, and playing with my dog:
