Anthony Nixon supervises 4 postgraduate research students. If these students have produced research profiles, these are listed below:
Student research profiles
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Professor in Mathematics
I would be interested in discussing PhD opportunities with a student interested in graph theory, matroid theory, discrete geometry, algebraic geometry, algebraic statistics or matrix/tensor product completions. Specifically I work in combinatorial rigidity which combines ideas from combinatorics, algebra and geometry to study problems related to each of the above topics. Unifying these topics is the study of geometric graphs and their configuration spaces. As well as the above theoretical topics, I am interested in applications of these topics, for example to biophysical materials and control of robotic formations.
I lead Lancaster's Combinatorics research theme and I'm also part of our Geometric Rigidity research theme.
I'm typically interested in combinatorial problems in geometric rigidity theory. These involve determining the nature of the solutions to systems of equations arising from geometric constraint systems. I am particularly interested in the generic behaviour and in understanding this behaviour in purely combinatorial terms.
At a basic level we consider the rigidity or flexibility of structures defined by geometric constraints (fixed length, angle, direction, etc.) on a set of rigid objects (points, lines, etc.). The fundamental example being that of bar-joint frameworks which are geometric realisations of graphs with edges represented by stiff bars and vertices by revolute joints.
To study such frameworks, rigidity uses a range of techniques from analysis, algebra, combinatorics and geometry. In particular the combinatorial side uses ideas from structural graph theory, combinatorial optimization and matroid theory, while the geometric side uses diverse ideas from projective geometry, matrix analysis, real (semi-)algebraic geometry and semi-definite programming, among others.
From January to April 2021 I taught a graduate course on combinatorial and geometric rigidity at the Fields Institute. The course information (including links to the lecture recordings) is here, http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/activities/20-21/constraint-CRDG. I also have typed (very rough) lecture notes that I can share on request.
Submitted papers:
1. Rigidity of symmetric frameworks on the cylinder, with Bernd Schulze and Joseph Wall, https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.06060.
2. Identifiability of points and rigidity of hypergraphs with algebraic constraints, with James Cruickshank, Fatemeh Mohammadi and Shin-Ichi Tanigawa, https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.18990.
3. On the uniqueness of collections of pennies and marbles, with Sean Dewar, Georg Grasegger, Kaie Kubjas and Fatemeh Mohammadi, https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.03525.
4. Rigidity of nearly planar classes of graphs, with Sean Dewar, Georg Grasegger, Eleftherios Kastis and Brigitte Servatius, https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.17499.
5. Angular constraints on planar frameworks, with Sean Dewar, Georg Grasegger, Zvi Rosen, William Sims, Meera Sitharam and David Urizar, https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.16145.
6. Single-cell 3D genome reconstruction in the haploid setting using rigidity theory, with Sean Dewar, Georg Grasegger, Kaie Kubjas and Fatemeh Mohammadi, https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.10700.
7. Spanning disks in triangulations of surfaces, with Katie Clinch, Sean Dewar, Niloufar Fuladi, Maximilian Gorsky, Tony Huynh, Eleftherios Kastis and Brigitte Servatius, https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.04450.
8. Realizations of frameworks, with Zvi Rosen and Jessica Sidman.
9. k-fold circuits in matroids, with Bill Jackson and Ben Smith, https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.14782.
10. Stable cuts, NAC-colourings and flexible realisations of graphs, with Katie Clinch, Daniel Garamvolgyi, John Haslegrave, Tony Huynh and Jan Legersky,https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.16018.
11. Rigid three-dimensional realisations of maximal planar graphs on parallel planes and lines, with Viktoria Kaszanitzky.
12. A tropical approach to rigidity: counting realisations of frameworks, with Oliver Clarke, Sean Dewar, Daniel Green Tripp, James Maxwell, Yue Ren and Ben Smith, https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.10255.
Information on my papers is also available at my google scholar page.
Collaborators:
Daniel Bernstein (Tulane), Bryan Chen, Oliver Clarke (Durham), Katie Clinch (New South Wales), Robert Connelly (Cornell), James Cruickshank (NUI Galway), Sean Dewar (Bristol), Yaser Eftekhari (York), Niloufar Fuladi, Daniel Garamvolgyi (Eotvos Lorand), Nick Gill (Open U), Neil Gillespie (Riverlane), Maximilian Gorsky, Steven Gortler (Harvard), Georg Grasegger (RICAM, Linz), Daniel Green Tripp (Bristol), Hakan Guler (Kastomonu), John Haslegrave (Lancaster), John Hewetson (Lancaster), Tony Huynh, Bill Jackson (Queen Mary), Eleftherios Kastis (Lancaster), Viktoria Kaszanitzky (Budapest), Derek Kitson (Mary Immaculate College), Kaie Kubjas (Aalto), Jan Legersky (Prague), James Maxwell (Bristol), Tom McCourt (Queensland), Fatemeh Mohammadi (Leuven), Harshit Motwani (Leuven), John Owen (Siemens), Stephen Power (Lancaster), Sean Prendiville (Lancaster), Yue Ren (Durham), Elissa Ross (Metafold), Zvi Rosen (Florida Atlantic), Mahdi Sadjadi (Arizona), Andrew Sainsbury (Lancaster), Bernd Schulze (Lancaster), Jason Semeraro (Loughborough), Brigitte Servatius (WPI), Jessica Sidman (Amherst), William Sims (Florida), Meera Sitharam (Florida), Adnan Sljoka (Kyoto), Ben Smith (Lancaster), Shin-ichi Tanigawa (Tokyo), Louis Theran (St Andrews), Mike Thorpe (Arizona), David Urizar (Florida Atlantic), Joseph Wall (Lancaster), Walter Whiteley (York).
Event organisation - upcoming:
Event organisation - past:
My group:
Postdocs:
Zeyuan He (2024 - 2025, ICERM)
Ben Smith (2023 - 2026, EPSRC)
John Hewetson (2022-2023, EPSRC)
Daniel Bernstein (2021, Fields Institute)
Sean Dewar (2021, Fields Institute)
Georg Grasegger (2021, Fields Institute)
Alexander Heaton (2021, Fields Institute)
Eleftherios Kastis (2021, Fields Institute)
PhD students:
Rebecca Monks (2023-)
Daniel Hodgson (2021-)
Jack Trainer (2021-)
Andrew Sainsbury (2020-, part-time)
Joseph Wall (2019-2024)
John Hewetson (2018-2022)
2023/2024
2022/2023
2021/2022
2020/2021
2018/2019
2018/2019
2017/2018
2016/2017
2015/2016
2014/2015
2023-2026, EPSRC grant, Abstract rigidity for natural stability problems, £428,712.
2022-2023, EPSRC grant, The graph rigidity problem in arbitrary dimension, £45,952.
2020-2021, Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research, fellowship, £42,135.
See the 'projects tab' for a number of further small grants.
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Activity: Hosting a visitor types › Hosting an academic visitor