August 10, 2022
My name is Paul Alexander Helminck. I did my PhD at the University of Bremen and I am currently a Postdoc at Durham University under Yue Ren. During my master’s I was invited by Bernd to study various topics in algebra and geometry at UC Berkeley for a year, which in turn led to many visits to the MPI MiS in Leipzig.
In my research I am interested in the non-archimedean and tropical structure of polynomial equations, with an emphasis on tropicalizing coverings of curves and finding generic root counts using tropical intersection theory. I’m currently working on the tropicalization of the moduli space of curves with level structure with Yassine and Enis.
In my free time I enjoy playing piano, reading books, playing video games, learning languages and running. Let me know if you ever find yourself in or around Durham, I’m always up for a cup of coffee or a drink.