Courses
About
I’m currently teaching math and computer science at Proof School in San Francisco. I like making nice math visuals. Lately I’ve been making a lot of interactive things with Geogebra, as well as Desmos. Most recently I made a bunch of tools for a visually-driven Complex Analysis class, which I say more about in these slides from Gathering 4 Gardner 16.
I also have a couple videos I made for the 3b1b Summer of Math Exposition.
Research
My PhD was in Applied Mathematics at UC Davis, working with professor David Doty. My research was at the intersection of distributed computing and molecular computing, focusing on the related models of population protocols and chemical reaction networks. These models describe a population of simple computational agents (ie. molecules) that have random pairwise interactions (ie. chemical reactions) and try to compute properties of the global configuration through these purely local interactions. Proving results in these models uses tools from theory of computation and stochastic processes.
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ppsim: A software package for efficiently simulating and visualizing population protocols
David Doty, Eric Severson. CMSB 2021.
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A time and space optimal stable population protocol solving exact majority
David Doty, Mahsa Eftekhari, Leszek Gąsieniec, Eric Severson, Grzegorz Stachowiak, Przemysław Uznański. 2021.
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Time-optimal self-stabilizing leader election in population protocols
Janna Burman, Ho-Lin Chen, Hsueh-Ping Chen, David Doty, Thomas Nowak, Eric Severson, Chuan Xu. PODC 2021.
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Message complexity of population protocols
Talley Amir, James Aspnes, David Doty, Mahsa Eftekhari, Eric Severson. DISC 2020.
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Composable computation in discrete chemical reaction networks
Eric Severson, David Haley, David Doty. Distributed Computing (journal) and PODC 2019.
Teaching
Proof School
- Complex Analysis: Block 1 2026-27, Block 1 2025-26, Block 2 2023-24
- Mathematical Cryptography: Block 2 2026-27, Block 5 2023-24
- Machine Learning: Year long 2026-27, 2024-25 and 2022-23
- Exponents/Logs/Trig B: Blocks 3-4 2025-26, Block 4 2024-25, Block 4 2023-24, Block 4 2022-23
- Stochastic Processes: Block 2 2025-26, Block 3 2021-22
- Dynamics of Differential Equations: Block 5 2024-25, Block 5 2022-23
- Euclidean Geometry 1: Block 3 2024-25, Block 2 2021-22
- Theory of Computation: Block 2 2024-25, Block 4 2021-22
- Graph Theory 1: Block 1 2024-25, Block 1 2023-24
- Euclidean Geometry 2: Block 3 2023-24
- Statistics A: Block 3 2022-23
- Differential Calculus: Block 2 2022-23
- Discrete Probability: Block 1 2022-23 and Block 1 2021-22
- Cryptography: Block 5 2021-22
UC Davis
As a full instructor
- Math 115A (Number Theory): Summer 2020
- Math 145A (Combinatorics): Summer 2019
- Math 21D (Vector Calculus): Fall 2018
- Math 21C (Series and Partial Derivatives): Summer 2017
As a teaching assistant
- ECS 220 (Graduate Theory of Computation): Spring 2020 and Spring 2021
- ECS 289A (Molecular Computation): Winter 2021
- Math 21D (Vector Calculus): Winter 2019
- Math 135B (Stochastic Processes): Spring 2018
- Math 21B (Integral Calculus): Winter 2018
- Math 21A (Differential Calculus): Fall 2017
- Math 135A (Probability): Fall 2017
- Math 108 (Intro to Abstract Math): Winter and Spring 2017
- Math 17C (Calculus for Biology): Fall 2016
Education
- PhD in Applied Mathematics, UC Davis, 2021
- BS in Applied Mathematics, UC Berkeley, 2016