Que sed - de saber cuanto! - Que hambre - de saber cuantas - estrellas tiene el cielo!
Pablo Neruda - Odas elementales
I am an Associate Professor of Mathematics at
Brandeis University.
I did my undergraduate studies at
Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, and my Ph.D. in Bordeaux under the supervision of
Mireille Bousquet-Mélou. I then spent one year at the
CRM-Barcelona for the thematic program
Enumerative Combinatorics and Random Structures organized by Marc Noy and Dominic Welsh. In 2007 I got hired by the
CNRS, and spent two years at
Université Paris-Sud in Orsay. I then took a leave from the CNRS to become Instructor of Applied Mathematics at
MIT before joining Brandeis University in 2012.
My main research interests are in combinatorics and probability. I study (and solve!) problems coming from mathematical physics, computer science and algebra.
One of my favorite topics is the combinatorics of
maps (graphs embedded in surfaces). Maps are important mathematical structures which appear in a wide variety of contexts: statistical mechanics, random surface theory (2D quantum gravity), representation theory, graph theory, and computer science (see
here for references about maps). In my research hours, I often try to find convenient encodings of maps by simpler mathematical structures (lattice paths, trees) in order to answer important open questions about maps.