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The UNT College of Science is pleased to welcome Dr. Sean Griffin to the UNT Mathematics department this semester as an Assistant Professor. Dr. Griffin’s research specialty is in Algebraic Combinatorics and Algebraic Geometry. 

“I think my ability to translate between different areas of math is unique,” said Dr. Griffin, who earned his Ph.D. at the University of Washington “Often when I am trying to solve an algebraic problem, for example, I try to use insights from geometry to help solve it or use discrete data structures to help organize the calculations.  

Prior to coming to UNT, Dr. Griffin worked postdoctoral and visiting positions at the University of California in San Diego and Davis, Brown University’s mathematical institute ICERM, and the University of Vienna. He also traveled to present his research across the world.  

“My most recent work concerns vertex-edge graphs. Some of the most prominent open questions in my field concern the symmetries of these graphs and ways in which they can be divided up," he explained. “My collaborators and I recently resolved some of these questions in our proof of the Stanley-Stembridge Conjecture, which had been open for more than 30 years. The novelty of our proof is that we used the geometry of spaces called ‘Hilbert schemes’ to solve the problem, but there are still many more questions remaining about these structures that I’m currently investigating.”  

Dr. Griffin was convinced that UNT would be a great place for him after meeting many of the graduate students and faculty in the math department while visiting.  

“I’m looking forward to contributing to the cutting-edge math research being done here and collaborating with other researchers at UNT,” he said. “I’m also passionate about teaching, and I’m excited about the opportunity to teach and mentor students in subjects that have applications to other fields such as Physics, Chemistry, Engineering and Data Science.”  

This semester, Dr. Griffin will be teaching Functions of a Complex Variable. “Essentially, we will be redoing Calculus but using complex numbers as inputs of our functions,” he said. “I am excited to teach my students that university math can be beautiful and sometimes even creative! It’s not all just number crunching and equation manipulation.”  

When he’s not pondering equations and teaching others the beauty of math, Dr. Griffin is an avid rock climber and enjoys vacationing in the mountains. He said he always climbs with a rope and a partner. “The longest single route I’ve completed was 1500 vertical feet, which took us about 8 hours,” he said. “Naturally, we were quite exhausted by the end!”