Rate My Professor Joel Louwsma

Dr. Joel Louwsma is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Niagara University, where he joined the faculty in 2015 as an Assistant Professor and was promoted in 2021. He earned his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the California Institute of Technology in 2011, completing his thesis titled "Extremality of the rotation quasimorphism on the modular group" under advisor Danny Calegari. Louwsma received his B.S. with Highest Honors in Mathematics from the University of Michigan in 2005, having participated in the Math in Moscow program in fall 2004 and spring 2005, as well as the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics program in spring 2003. Prior to his position at Niagara University, he served as a Visiting Assistant Professor (postdoctoral position) at the University of Oklahoma from 2011 to 2014 and as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Smith College from 2014 to 2015.

Louwsma's research interests include topology, group theory, combinatorics, and number theory. Trained as a topologist, his thesis and postdoctoral work focused on quasimorphisms and their connections to stable commutator length and bounded cohomology; more recently, he has concentrated on arithmetical structures on graphs and their critical groups. His publications have appeared in journals such as Linear Algebra and its Applications, Discrete Mathematics, Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, and Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society. Notable works include "Critical groups of arithmetical structures under a generalized star-clique operation" with Alexander Diaz-Lopez (Linear Algebra Appl. 656, 2023), "Arithmetical structures on bidents" with Kassie Archer, Abigail C. Bishop, Alexander Diaz-Lopez, Luis D. García Puente, and Darren Glass (Discrete Math. 343, 2020), and "On arithmetical structures on complete graphs" with undergraduate Zachary Harris (Involve 13, 2020). He has received the Apostol Award for Excellence in Teaching in Mathematics from Caltech in 2010, along with multiple Niagara University grants including Academic Innovation Fund awards (2018-2019), Research Support Grants (2016-2017, 2019-2020), and Undergraduate Student-Faculty Research Collaboration Awards (2022). Louwsma has given invited talks at institutions including Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg (2019), University of Pittsburgh (2017), and Yale University (2014). At Niagara University, he has chaired the Mathematics Search Committee (2019-2022), served on the Academic Senate (2018-2022), and mentored students by taking them to conferences such as the MAA Seaway Section Meeting.