Robert J. Won – Department of Mathematics, The George Washington University

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the George Washington University. My research interests are in noncommutative algebra. For more information about my mathematical life, see my curriculum vitae and my research page. For some cherry-picked information about my non-mathematical life, see my miscellaneous page.

Together with Joel Lewis and Joe Bonin, I co-organize the GWU Combinatorics and Algebra Seminar. Joel maintains the website. If you would like to give a talk, let me know!

A little about me: I was born and raised in New Jersey. I headed south to North Carolina for college, receiving my BS in mathematics from Duke University in 2011 (Go Devils!). I then made my way to the west coast for graduate school at the University of California San Diego. I spent five years learning a lot of algebra from Daniel Rogalski, eating a lot of fish tacos and carne asada fries, and occasionally watching sunsets over the Pacific Ocean. I received my PhD in mathematics in 2016. My then-five-month-old niece enjoyed reading my dissertation (maybe).

After graduating, I moved back to North Carolina where I spent two years as a Teacher-Scholar Postdoctoral Fellow at Wake Forest University, working with Ellen Kirkman. I also enjoyed having season tickets to an ACC basketball program. In the fall of 2018, I moved back west to Seattle, where I spent three years as a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Washington. My research mentor at UW was James Zhang.

I loved living in Seattle, but I decided it was about time to get back to my East coast roots. In the fall of 2021, I made my fourth consecutive (!) cross-country move, and started at GWU.