About me
I am a third year graduate student in the mathematics department at UC Berkeley advised by Bernd Sturmfels. I passed my Qualifying Exams in November 2023, on Combinatorics, Metric Algebraic Geometry and Commutative Algebra. I graduated with a B.S. degree in mathematics with honors from the University of Iceland in spring 2022.
My mathematical interests lie in computational algebraic geometry, commutative algebra and combinatorics.
You can reach me by my email at svala@math.berkeley.edu and in my office in 869 Evans Hall.
Here is my CV [current as of November 11th 2024].
Research
-
Gram Matrices for Isotropic Vectors
(with Yassine El Maazouz and Bernd Sturmfels),
23pp,
submitted toJournal of the European Mathematical Society.
-
Kinematic Varieties for Massless Particles
(with Smita Rajan and Bernd Sturmfels),
19pp,
submitted toLe Matematiche.
-
Exploring Ground and Excited States via Single Reference Coupled-Cluster Theory and Algebraic Geometry
(with Fabian Faulstich),
39pp,
Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation
20
(2024)
8517-8528.
-
Coupled Cluster Degree of the Grassmannian
(with Viktoriia Borovik and Bernd Sturmfels),
13pp,
Journal of Symbolic Computation
128
(2025).
-
Algebraic Varieties in Quantum Chemistry
(with Fabian Faulstich and Bernd Sturmfels),
25pp,
Foundations of Computational Mathematics
(2024)
1-32.
-
Four-Dimensional Lie Algebras Revisited
(with Laurent Manivel and Bernd Sturmfels),
Journal of Lie Theory
33
(2023)
703-712.
Activities
2024
-
August - December
:Organizing a reading seminar on the book Tensors: Geometry and Applications by J.M. Landsberg.
Schedule(Berkeley, California).
-
June 10th - June 13th
:Visiting and giving a talk at the University of Osnabrück
(Osnabrück, Germany).
-
June 3rd - June 7th
:Giving a talk at the Optimization Techniques in Quantum Chemistry summer school in RWTH
(Aachen, Germany).
-
May - July
:Visit to Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences
(Leipzig, Germany).
-
May 4th
:Talking in Research in Combinatorics by Early Career Mathematicians session at the AMS sectional meeting in SFSU
(San Francisco, California).
-
February 25th - March 1st
:Presenting a poster at the 63rd Sanibel Symposium
(St. Augustine, Florida).
2023
-
September - November
:Studying for my Qualifying Exams on November 29th Syllabus
(Berkeley, California).
-
July 4th - July 6th
:Visiting and giving a talk at the University of Osnabrück
(Osnabrück, Germany).
-
June - July
:Visit to Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences
(Leipzig, Germany).
-
May 28th - June 2nd
:Attending Oberwolfach Seminar: Metric Algebraic Geometry
(Oberwolfach, Germany).
2022
-
June - August
:Visit to Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences
(Leipzig, Germany).
Teaching
-
Fall 2024
:MATH1A
-Calculus.
Teaching assistant,
Instructor: Alexander Paulin.
-
Spring 2024
:MATH113
-Introduction to Abstract Algebra.
Teaching assistant,
Various instructors.
-
Fall 2023
:MATH54
-Linear Algebra & Differential Equations.
Teaching assistant,
Instructor: Zvezdelina Stankova.
-
Spring 2023
:MATH54
-Linear Algebra & Differential Equations.
Teaching assistant,
Instructor: Norman Sheu.
-
Fall 2021
:Honors Linear Algebra.
Teaching assistant,
Instructor: Rögnvaldur Möller.
-
Spring 2021
:Probability and Statistics.
Teaching assistant,
Instructor: Hermann Þórisson.
-
Fall 2020
:Mathematical Analysis I.
Teaching assistant,
Instructor: Benedikt Steinar Magnússon.