Alexandru I. Suciu	Mathematics Department
Professor	Northeastern University

Contact

Office: 435 Lake Hall
Phone: 1-617-373-3833
Fax: 1-617-373-5658
E-Mail: a.suciu@northeastern.edu

Mailing Address

Prof. Alexandru Suciu
567 Lake Hall
Dept. of Mathematics
Northeastern University
360 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115, USA

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Background

I hail from Bucharest, Romania. I did my undergraduate studies at the Faculty of Mathematics of the University of Bucharest. Here is a picture from those days.

For my graduate studies, I went to Columbia University, receiving my Ph.D. degree in 1984. Here is a picture from around that time, taken in Cambridge, UK.

After a J.W. Gibbs Instructorship at Yale University, I came in 1986 to Northeastern University, where I've been ever since.

Research

My research interests are in Topology, and how it relates to Algebra, Geometry, and Combinatorics. I currently investigate cohomology jumping loci, and their applications to algebraic varieties, low-dimensional topology, and toric topology, such as the study of hyperplane arrangements, Milnor fibrations, moment angle complexes, configuration spaces, and various classes of knots, links, and manifolds, as well as the homology and lower central series of discrete groups. Below are some recent papers and preprints (click here and here for a complete list).

Infinitesimal finiteness obstructions (with S. Papadima), J. London Math. Soc. 99 (2019), no. 1, 173-193.
Cup products, lower central series, and holonomy Lie algebras (with H. Wang), J. Pure Appl. Alg. 223 (2019), no. 8, 3359-3385.
Naturality properties and comparison results for topological and infinitesimal embedded jump loci (with S. Papadima), Adv. in Math. 350 (2019), 256-303.
Formality properties of finitely generated groups and Lie algebras (with H. Wang), Forum Math. 31 (2019), no. 4, 867-905.
Chen ranks and resonance varieties of the upper McCool groups (with H. Wang), Adv. in Appl. Math. 110 (2019), 197-234.
The topology of compact Lie group actions through the lens of finite models (with S. Papadima), Int. Math. Res. Notices IMRN 2019 (2019), no. 20, 6390-6436.
Rank two topological and infinitesimal embedded jump loci of quasi-projective manifolds (with S. Papadima), J. Inst. Math. Jussieu 19 (2020), no. 2, 451-485.
Residually finite rationally p groups (with T. Koberda), Commun. Contemp. Math. 22 (2020), no. 3, 1950016 (44 pages).
Homology, lower central series, and hyperplane arrangements (with R.D. Porter), Eur. J. Math. 6 (2020), no. 3, 1039-1072.
Taylor expansions of groups and filtered-formality (with H. Wang), Eur. J. Math. 6 (2020), no. 3, 1073-1096.
Poincaré duality and resonance varieties, Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh Sect. A. 150 (2020), no. 6, 3001-3027.
Sigma-invariants and tropical varieties, Math. Annalen 380 (2021), no. 3-4, 1427-1463.
Cohomology jump loci of 3-manifolds, Manuscripta Math. 67 (2022), no. 1-2, 89-123.
Differential graded algebras, Steenrod cup-one products, binomial operations, and Massey products (with R. Porter), Topology Appl. (2021).
Lower central series and split extensions, preprint May 2021.
Alexander invariants and cohomology jump loci in group extensions, preprint July 2021.

Teaching

I teach a variety of math courses, both at the undergraduate and graduate level. If you are interested in taking a directed study course or a reading course with me (in addition to those courses regularly offered), please contact me.

In Spring 2018, I taught MATH 4565, an undergraduate course in Topology.
In Fall 2018, I taught MATH 7221, a graduate Topology 2 course.
In Summer-2 2020, I taught MATH 3175, an undergraduate course in Group Theory.
In Fall 2021, I taught MATH 4565, an undergraduate course in Topology.
In Spring 2022, I teach MATH 7721, a Readings in Topology course.

Activities

In January 2018 I co-organized at Oberwolfach a workshop on Topology of arrangements and representation stability, while in April I organized together with Graham Denham a workshop and special session on Arrangements of Hypersurfaces at the A.M.S. Spring Eastern Sectional Meeting, held at Northeastern. In late May I co-organized a conference at IMAR, in Bucharest, Romania in memory of my friend and long-time collaborator, Stefan Papadima, where I gave a lecture surveying his work. In July I gave a series of lectures at the Summer School on New Trends in Topology and Geometry, held at the Mediterranean Institute for the Mathematical Sciences in Tunis, Tunisia.
In February 2019 I participated in a workshop on Braids, Resolvent Degree and Hilbert's 13th Problem, held at IPAM on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles, CA, after which I visited and gave a colloquium talk at the University of Nevada at Reno. In March I was at the Institute of Mathematics in Hanoi, Vietnam, where I helped organize a CIMPA School and a workshop on Hyperplane Arrangements, while in May I co-organized a workshop on Arrangements at Western University, in London, ON. In mid-summer I participated in a conference on Non-Isolated Singularities and Derived Geometry, held at UNAM-Cuernavaca, Mexico, while in September I gave talks at Donu Arapura's 60th birthday conference and in an AMS special session on Geometry and Topology of Singularities, both held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In December I was at a conference on Hyperplane Arrangements and Singularities, held at the University of Tokyo, Japan.
At the start of 2020 I participated in a workshop on Polyhedral Products in Homotopy Theory, held at the Fields Institute in Toronto, ON and a workshop on Configuration Spaces of Graphs, held at the American Institute of Mathematics in San Jose, CA. During the summer I organized, together with Christin Bibby and Graham Denham a sequence of 3 virtual workshops, named Arrangements at Home.
In 2021 I participated in a couple of virtual meetings: a workshop on Logarithmic Vector Fields and Freeness of Divisors and Arrangements, hosted by MFO Oberwolfach, and the TIBĂR60 Conference, hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In October, I organized together with Peter Crooks an (in person!) conference on Compactifications, Configurations, and Cohomology at Northeastern. Also in the fall of 2021 I got back on the road, and gave talks at the conference in Algebraic Geometry for Alexandru Dimca's retirement, held in Ischia, Italy, and at the conference on Braids, Links, and Applications, held at IMSA, University of Miami.