Michael Thaddeus

Michael Thaddeus is Professor of Mathematics in the Department of Mathematics at Columbia University. Originally from New York City and raised in Morningside Heights, he studied at Harvard College, where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, and at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, earning his DPhil in 1992 with a dissertation entitled Algebraic Geometry and the Verlinde Formula under the supervision of Nigel Hitchin. Following his graduate studies, he held a Junior Fellowship at the Harvard Society of Fellows. He joined the Columbia faculty in 1997 as Associate Professor and was promoted to full Professor. In the department, he served as Director of Graduate Studies from 2009 to 2012 and as Chair from 2017 to 2020. He has also served on the Executive Committee of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Committee on Science Instruction, and currently represents the faculty as a University Senator and vice-president of the Columbia chapter of the American Association of University Professors.

Thaddeus's research specialty is algebraic geometry, particularly those aspects related to quantum field theory. His work focuses on moduli spaces of stable bundles on Riemann surfaces, parabolic Higgs bundles, mirror symmetry, Langlands duality, and the Hitchin system. Notable publications include Conformal field theory and the cohomology of the moduli space of stable bundles, Stable pairs, linear systems and the Verlinde formula, Geometric invariant theory and flips, Mirror symmetry, Langlands duality, and the Hitchin system (with Tamás Hausel), and Variations on a theme of Grothendieck (with Johan Martens). He was a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar in 2022-2023.

Professional Email: mt324@columbia.edu