About me
I am a second year graduate student in the mathematics department at UC Berkeley. My advisor is Bernd Sturmfels. I graduated with a B.S. degree in mathematics with honors from the University of Iceland in spring 2022.
My interests lie in computational algebraic geometry, algebra and combinatorics.
You can reach me by my email at svala@math.berkeley.edu and in my office at 854 Evans Hall.

Research
- Algebraic Varieties in Quantum Chemistry (with Fabian Faulstich and Bernd Sturmfels), 25pp, submitted to Foundations of Computational Mathematics.
- Four-Dimensional Lie Algebras Revisited (with Laurent Manivel and Bernd Sturmfels), Journal of Lie Theory 33 (2023) 703-712.
Activities
- July 4th - July 6th 2023: visiting University of Osnabrück (Osnabrück, Germany).
- June - July 2023: visit to Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences (Leipzig, Germany).
- May 28th - June 2nd 2023: Oberwolfach Seminar: Metric Algebraic Geometry.
- June - August 2022: visit to Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences (Leipzig, Germany).
Teaching
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Fall 2023: MATH54.
Teaching assistant, Instructor: Zvezdelina Stankova. -
Spring 2023: MATH54.
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.