My interests:

Academically, I am primarily a mathematician.

I have always been fascinated by the elegance and beauty found in the subject, and loved using this, at times extremely difficult, subject matter to train my mind to harness greater levels of critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

At the moment, in research, I am mainly interested in algebraic topology and homological algebra. As a student, I’m also trying to learn the basics of formal logic and set theory.

In the past, I’ve done research at the intersection of linear algebra, combinatorics, and group theory —- specifically on binary circulant matrices and their determinants.

I have a teetering interest in algebraic geometry too… but, sadly, attempts so far at learning it properly have not been successful!

My interests also branch out, in a more casual way, to

Physics & Astronomy.

In school, my math foundations provided a springboard to physics, which became a natural side hobby.

In the run-up to representing Singapore at the Asian Physics Olympiad, I was exposed to many of the ideas of the great physicists —- Carnot, Boltzmann, de Broglie, Lorentz, etc., which propelled me to see the beauty in the subject.

With time, I’ve particularly come to love and appreciate the mathematical connections: how the language of geometry is used in GR, and even formulations of classical mechanics (symplectic structure in Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics).

I’ve also found it occasionally fun to apply some basic math and physics principles to understanding astrophysical systems. It’s surprisingly easy to understand from first principles the positioning of the JWST at L2 of the Sun-Earth system; to model the pulsation of a Cepheid variable star; or even to understand the expansion of the universe! Obtaining these seemingly complicated levels of understanding from first principles is, to me, one of the most rewarding parts about the subject of physics in general.