next magic

Sam Lewallen


Hi! I'm a graduate student at Princeton university. My current interests are in topology, and theoretical neuroscience. I'm also looking to branch out into areas of representation theory and dynamical systems at some point or other (yeah right).

In Spring 2010 I will be at the MSRI at Berkeley, for the programs in knot homologies and symplectic geometry.

Currently I'm thinking about instanton homology, other knot homology theories, and their relationships. Here's my (marginally related) NSF research proposal (note that there are a few egregious errors, hopefully not enough to negate the entire thing. Read at your own risk!):
Khovanov homology, the Volume Conjecture, and Zeta functions

Here's my undergraduate thesis, more riddled with typos than errors. Though long and slightly unwieldy, it might be of interest to someone out there:
The Volume Conjecture

Feedback on the above is highly desired and highly appreciated. Likewise for the following:

Papers / Preprints
"Khovanov homology of 2-bridge links and SU(2) representations of the link group", submitted
"Stimulus-dependent correlations in threshold-crossing spiking neurons," with H. Sompolinsky and Y. Burak, Neural Computation, August 2009, Vol. 21, No. 8: 2269–2308.

Links Check out the BLOG, please! Comment! Even post!

Site design ripped from Jacob Fox, but mutilated by myself.

Contact: lewallen AT math DOT princeton DOT edu