I am a Professor (Hoogleraar) at the Departments of Computer Science and Mathematics at KU Leuven. Prior to joining KU Leuven, I was a tenured BOFZAP Professor (Hoogleraar) at Ghent University, and before that, a Reader at the University of Bristol and an EPSRC Early Career Fellow. Since 2018, I have been an EPSRC Full College Member and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

My research is currently supported by the FWO (Flanders Research Foundation). Previously, it was partially supported by Ghent University's BOF, the UK EPSRC, and the London Mathematical Society (LMS).

My research lies in Applied Algebraic Geometry. In particular, I am interested in developing computational tools to study problems in statistics and probability theory, theoretical computer science, mathematical optimization, and quantum physics. On the theoretical side, I work on toric degenerations, combinatorial divisor theory, matroid and determinantal varieties, tensors, conditional probabilities, graphical models, and system reliability theory.

News:

• PhD positions available in my research group at KU Leuven funded by the FWO Odysseus grant and the KU Leuven iBOF grant.

• Postdoc positions available (in numerical algebraic geometry) in my research group at KU Leuven.

• Spring 2023: I will be teaching a course on "Foundations of Combinatorial Algebraic Geometry" starting February 2023.

• Fall 2023: I will be teaching a course on "Complex Analysis and Approximation Theory" starting September 2023.

Upcoming and Recent Organised Conferences and Workshops:

• 2023.09: Invitation to Algebraic Statistics and Applications, Workshop, part of the Algebraic Statistics and Our Changing World, the IMSI, USA

• 2022.12: Toric Degenerations, Workshop, co-organised with Lara Bossinger, Alessio Corti and Megumi Harada at Banff Research Station, Canada

• 2022.11: Tensors in statistics, optimization and machine learning, Workshop, co-organised with Francesco Galuppi, Luca Sodomaco at IMPAN, Poland

• 2021.06: MEGA Conference: Effective Methods in Algebraic Geometry at University of Tromsø, Norway

Past Employments:

• 2021.09 - 2022.07: BOFZAP Full Professor (Hoogleraar), tenured at Ghent University

• 2020.03 - 2021.08: BOFZAP Associate Professor (Hoofddocent), tenured at Ghent University

• 2019.08 - 2020.02: Reader (Associate Professor) in Pure Mathematics, University of Bristol

• 2017.01 - 2019.08: Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Pure Mathematics, University of Bristol

• 2015.10 - 2017.01: Postdoctoral Researcher within the Einstein project in Bernd Sturmfels group at Technical University Berlin

• 2014.11 - 2015.10: IST Fellow working with Caroline Uhler at IST Austria

• 2013.11 - 2014.08: Alexander von Humboldt research fellow at Osnabrück University with Winfried Bruns

• 2012.07 - 2013.10: Alexander von Humboldt research fellow at the Philipps University Marburg working with Volkmar Welker

• 2011.09 - 2012.06: Postdoctoral Researcher at MSRI, Berkeley, under the supervision of Hélène Barcelo

Editorial Boards:

• Since 2022.05: Associate Editor, Journal of Symbolic Computation

• Since 2022.01: Associate Editor, SIAM Journal on Applied Algebra and Geometry (SIAGA)

• 2021 - 2022: Guest Editor, Special Issue of the Journal of Symbolic Computation on the occasion of MEGA 2021

• Since 2020.01: Associate Editor, Journal of Algebraic Combinatorics

Scientific Committees:

• 2022.02: Program committee member, The 17th MEGA Conference on Effective Methods in Algebraic Geometry: MEGA 2022

• 2022.01: Scientific committee member, Combinatorial Commutative Algebra Summer School, Gebze Technical University, Turkey

• 2021.06: Committee member, The 16th MEGA Conference on Effective Methods in Algebraic Geometry: MEGA 2021

• 2018.07: Committee member, The 30th International Conference on Formal Power Series and Algebraic Combinatorics: FPSAC 2018

Academic Service:

• 2021 - 2022: FWO project panel member in Mathematical Sciences, Belgium

• Since 2018: Reviewer for proposals submitted to EPSRC (UK), ICMS (UK), and DFG (Germany), GACR (Czechia), IST-Bridge postdoctoral program (ISTA, Austria)