Curriculum Vitae of Raf Bocklandt (PDF version)

Personal Details

First Names: Rafaël Robert Julia
Surname: Bocklandt
Gender: Male
Date of birth: 6th of October, 1977
Place of birth: Hamme, Belgium
Citizenship: Belgian

Language Knowledge

  • Dutch native
  • English good
  • French good
  • Italian fair & Portuguese basic

Education

  • Licentiaat Zuivere Wiskunde (≅ Master in Pure Mathematics) at Ghent University
    Thesis: Knot invariants and the Jones Polynomial
    Supervisor: Prof. Dr. W. Mielants
  • Licentiaat Theoretische Natuurkunde (≅ Master in Theoretical Physics) at Ghent University
    Thesis: Noncommutative geometry and the Standard Model
    Supervisor: Prof. Dr. H. Verschelde
  • Aggregaat Natuurkunde (≅ Master in Teaching Physics) at Ghent University
  • Advanced Master in Linguistics at Ghent University
    Thesis: Dialect Loss among the youth in Hamme
    Supervisor: Prof. Dr. J. Taeldeman
  • Phd in Mathematics at the University of Antwerp
    Thesis: The Geometry of Quotient Varieties of Quivers
    Supervisor: Prof. Dr. L. Le Bruyn.
  • University teaching qualificaton (BKO) at the University of Amsterdam

Working Experience

  • Full time teaching assistant algebra and geometry at the University of Antwerp
  • Part time teaching assistant algebra and geometry at the University of Antwerp
  • Post-doctoral research fellow for the TMR at the University of Bielefeld
  • Post-doctoral research fellow at the University La Sapienza in Rome
  • Post-doctoral research fellow for the Flemish Science Fund (FWO) at the University of Antwerp
  • Part time high school teacher at KAB in Antwerp.
  • Lecturer in mathematics at the University of Newcastle.
  • Lecturer in mathematics at the University of Amsterdam.
  • Program director of the Bachelor Mathematics at the University of Amsterdam.

Teaching

  • At Koninklijk Atheneum Berchem:
    Chemistry and Physics for 16-17 year old high school students
  • At the University of Antwerp:
    Exercises classes in Algebra, Commutative Algebra and Differential Geometry for 3rd year mathematics students Full Courses on Representation Theory, Coding Theory and Cryptography and Differential Geometry II for 3rd and 4th year mathematics students Advanced Master Courses in Geometric Invariant theory, Kleinian Singularities and Knot theory
  • At the University of Newcastle:
    Linear Algebra for 2nd year mathematics students Coding Theory for 3rd year mathematics students
  • At the University of Amsterdam:
    Van orde tot chaos for 2nd year beta-gamma students Algebra I for 1st year Bachelor Mathematics students Topologie for 2nd year Bachelor Mathematics students Mirror Symmetry and Blowups and deformations for Master Mathematics students. Basiswiskunde for 1st year Bachelor Mathematics students Itereren en Visualizeren for 1st year Bachelor Mathematics students
  • Supervising:
    Supervisor of several bachelor (±20) and master projects (±15) at the universities of Antwerp, Newcastle and Amsterdam. Cosupervisor of the graduate thesis of Nick Loughlin (2011-2012) at the university of Newcastle and Jasper van de Kreeke at the University of Amsterdam (2018-Now).

Committees

  • Member of the Educational Committee for the department of Mathematics at the University of Antwerp.
  • Member of the Staff-Student Committee for the school of Mathematics at the University of Newcastle.
  • Member of Wiskforall Committee.
  • Member of the organizing committee for Nationale Wiskunde Dagen.
  • Member of the curriculum reform committee of the Bachelor Mathematics.
  • Chair of the Outreach Committee of the KdVi.

Editing

  • Chief editor of Nieuw Archief voor Wiskunde.
  • Editor for London Mathematical Society.

Outreach and Science Popularization

  • I gave several lectures about connections between geometry, algebra and its applications to cryptography and GPS-systems in Belgium to high school students and high school teachers.
  • I gave several lectures to students, prospective students and the general public at the UvA on outreach events (Open days, Leve de Wiskunde, Ouderdag, ...)
  • Speaker and co-organizer for the Nationale Wiskunde Dagen (Tropical Geometry, GPS-systems, Math Pub quiz)
  • Speaker for Universiteit van Nederland. Title: Hoe vind je een gat in een onzichtbare ruimte (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zVAPVUHrF0).

Research

I work in the field of geometric representation theory with applications to mathematical physics. In particular my interests are in the following areas.
  • Representation theory of quivers
  • Resolutions of singularities
  • Noncommutative geometry
  • Geometric invariant theory
  • Homological mirror symmetry
Below is a short selection of my most cited papers. An overview of my publications can be found on https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet/.
  • Bocklandt, Raf. “Noncommutative mirror symmetry for punctured surfaces.” Transactions of the American Mathematical Society 368.1 (2016): 429-469.
  • Bocklandt, Raf. “A dimer abc.” Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society 48.3 (2016): 387-451.
  • Bocklandt, Raf. “Consistency conditions for dimer models.” Glasgow Mathematical Journal 54.2 (2012): 429-447.
  • Bocklandt, Raf, Travis Schedler, and Michael Wemyss. “Superpotentials and higher order derivations.” Journal of pure and applied algebra 214.9 (2010): 1501-1522.
  • Bocklandt, Raf. “Graded Calabi Yau algebras of dimension 3.” Journal of pure and applied algebra 212.1 (2008): 14-32.
I have written an introductory book on Homological Mirror symmetry aimed at graduate students. The book is written from the perspective of representation theory and illustrates the important concepts in Mirror symmetry using examples coming from quivers and Fukaya categories of surfaces.
  • Bocklandt, Raf. A Gentle Introduction to Homological Mirror Symmetry. Vol. 99. Cambridge University Press, 2021. Together with Sergey Shadrin and Hessel Posthuma we obtained an NWO-grant 'Grant Algebraic methods and structures in the theory of Frobenius manifolds and their applications' (TOPl.17.012).