About me
I am a second 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 May 22nd 2024].
Research
- Exploring Ground and Excited States via Single Reference Coupled-Cluster Theory and Algebraic Geometry (with Fabian Faulstich), 39pp, submitted to Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation.
- Coupled Cluster Degree of the Grassmannian (with Viktoriia Borovik and Bernd Sturmfels), 13pp, to appear in Journal of Symbolic Computation.
- Algebraic Varieties in Quantum Chemistry (with Fabian Faulstich and Bernd Sturmfels), 25pp, to appear in Foundations of Computational Mathematics.
- Four-Dimensional Lie Algebras Revisited (with Laurent Manivel and Bernd Sturmfels), Journal of Lie Theory 33 (2023) 703-712.
Activities
2024
- June 10th - June 13th: Visiting and giving a talk at the University of Osnabrück (Osnabrück, Germany).
- June 3rd - June 7th: Attending and giving a talk at the Optimization Techniques in Quantum Chemistry workshop and summer school at RWTH Aachen University (Aachen, Germany).
- May - July: Visit to Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences (Leipzig, Germany).
- May 4th: Giving a talk in the special session on Research in Combinatorics by Early Career Mathematicians at the AMS sectional meeting in SFSU (San Francisco, United States).
- February 25th - Mar 1st: Attending and presenting a poster at the 63rd Sanibel Symposium (St. Augustine, Florida, United States).
2023
- September - November: Studying for my Qualifying Exams on November 29th. My topics are Combinatorics, Metric Algebraic Geometry and a minor topic Commutative Algeba. Syllabus
- 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: Oberwolfach Seminar: Metric Algebraic Geometry.
2022
- June - August: Visit to Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences (Leipzig, Germany).
Teaching
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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.