What Matters to Me & Why: Jesse Wolfson, Professor of Mathematics

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Jesse Wolfson is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, Irvine, with affiliate faculty status in the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science. He joined UCI in 2017, after an L.E. Dickson Instructorship at the University of Chicago and a visiting position at the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) in Japan. He earned his Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 2014 under Ezra Getzler, and holds an M.A.St (Part III) from Cambridge (2009), and an M.S. in mathematics and a B.S. in Mathematics and Literature from Yale (2008).

His research concerns the interplay of arithmetic, geometry, and topology, with an especial focus on phenomena in and around Hilbert's 13th problem, and increasingly with the impacts of AI on mathematical practice. He has held multiple NSF grants, including a CAREER Award for his work on braids and resolvent degree, and currently leads a DARPA award under the expMath program. With Jeff Streets, he co-directs the Southern California Geometry and Topology Center, supported by an NSF RTG grant, and he advises a large training group of PhD students and postdocs.

Beyond academic mathematics, Wolfson co-founded the Roosevelt Institute, a national public policy organization, and he has a long-running engagement at the intersection of mathematics and the arts, through a 15 year collaboration with internationally acclaimed Brooklyn-based choreographer Reggie Wilson and his Fist and Heel Performance Group.

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