Karin Melnick

Department of Mathematics
Yale University
P.O. Box 208283
New Haven, CT 06511
karin.melnick at yale.edu
(203) 432-6859
I am a Gibbs Assistant Professor at Yale University,
partially supported by a Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation.
In fall 2009, I will become an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland in College Park.

Here is my curriculum vitae as of January 2009 ( dvi) (pdf) (ps)

Research Interests

  • differential-geometric aspects of rigidity
  • Lorentz geometry
  • conformal pseudo-Riemannian geometry

    Papers:

  • A Frobenius theorem for Cartan geometries, with applications
    dvi pdf ps
    posted at http://www.arXiv.org/abs/0812.0624

  • Conformal actions of nilpotent groups on pseudo-Riemannian manifolds, with Charles Frances
    dvi pdf ps
    posted at http://www.arXiv.org/abs/0807.4735

  • An embedding theorem for automorphism groups of Cartan geometries, with Uri Bader and Charles Frances
    dvi pdf ps
    to appear in Geometric and Functional Analysis

  • Compact Lorentz manifolds with local symmetry
    University of Chicago dissertation, 2006 dvi pdf ps
    article version dvi pdf ps
    in Journal of Differential Geometry 81 no. 2 (2009) 355-390

  • A primer on the (2+1) Einstein universe, with Thierry Barbot, Virginie Charette, Todd Drumm, and William Goldman
    dvi pdf ps
    in Recent developments in pseudo-Riemannian Geometry: Proceedings of the Special Semester "Geometry of pseudo-Riemannian manifolds with application to physics", Erwin Schrödinger Insitute, Vienna, Sept - Dec 2005 (eds. D. Alekseevsky and H. Baum) in ESI-Series on Mathematics and Physics

  • Actions of noncompact semisimple groups on Lorentz manifolds, with Mohamed Deffaf and Abdelghani Zeghib
    dvi pdf ps
    Geometric and Functional Analysis 18 no. 2 (2008) 463-488

  • Isometric actions of Heisenberg groups on compact Lorentz manifolds
    dvi pdf ps
    Geometriae Dedicata 126 no. 1 (2007) 131-154

    Recent and upcoming talks and conferences

  • AMS-KMS Joint Meeting Special session on low-dimensional topology, geometric group theory, and Lie groups Seoul, Korea, December, 2009
  • Hausdorff Research Institute for Mathematics Workshop on Rigidity Bonn, Germany, November, 2009
  • Analysis and Geometry of pseudo-Riemannian manifolds Greifswald, Germany, July, 2009
  • École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne Seminar May, 2009
  • Erwin Schrödinger Institute April-June, 2009
  • Tufts University Geometric Group Theory and Topology Seminar April, 2009
  • AMS Eastern sectional meeting, Special session on Riemannian and Lorentzian geometries Middletown, CT, October, 2008
  • Summer school on quasi-conformal analysis and boundaries of hyperbolic groups Bloomington, IN, August, 2008
  • Discrete Groups and Geometric Stuctures Kortrijk, Belgium, May, 2008
  • Groupement pour la Géométrie et la Topologie au Maghreb École CIMPA-UNESCO-MAROC Marrakech, Morocco, May, 2008

    Teaching

    In spring 2009, I am teaching a graduate course on Automorphisms of geometric structures.

    Lecture notes on Dynamics on Lorentz manifolds, from the École de Géométrie Différentielle et Systèmes Dynamiques, ENSET Oran, Algeria, November 4-9, 2006
    dvi pdf ps
    to appear in Algèbre, analyse, et dynamique pour la géométrie: Actes des Écoles de Géométrie et Dynamique au Maghreb 2004-2007 (eds. T. Barbot, H. Belbachir, S. Mehdi, D. Smai, R. Souam)

    Some Pictures and Links

  • Algeria, November, 2006
  • Croquet (courtesy of Mark Behrens)
  • Karaoke birthday with BZ at Sing-A-Thon KTV, June 2001 (courtesy of David Ben-Zvi)
  • Portrait of incoming graduate students, University of Chicago, September 1999