Michael J. Falk

Topology, Geometry, Algebra & Combinatorics

At left, Desolation Canyon, Utah, USA

Greetings. You've landed on the personal home page of Michael Falk. I teach and do research in mathematics at Northern Arizona University. My primary fields of interest are topology, combinatorics, algebra, and geometry, in particular in their applications to the theory of complex hyperplane arrangements. I play traditional music on the side - see below.

Students looking for information on courses I'm teaching should click on the first link in the column to the left.

Serious stuff My curriculum vita, abstracts and preprints of some of my scholarly articles, a brief description of my research interests, stuff like that.

My academic ancestry I have an interesting academic lineage. To check it out, click on the link, and then click on my advisor's name (Peter Orlik) to see his advisor, and continue on back to the late 1600's. See if you recognize any names.

Recent and upcoming conferences:

Conference in honour of Peter Orlik  My doctoral advisor, Peter Orlik, retired from teaching in 2007. This conference is to honor him and celebrate his career. I'm proud to be taking part - it's not often one has the opportunity to say thank you to one's teachers (hint, hint ...). It will transpire August 19-22, 2008, at the Fields Institute in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

MSJ Seasonal Institute on Arrangements of Hyperplanes  A large conference sponsored by the Mathematical Society of Japan, to take place August 1-9, 2009, in Sapporo, Japan.

Travels last summer:

CIMPA Summer School on Arrangement, Local Sysytems, and Singularities I lectured in this summer school in Istanbul, Turkey, in June, 2007. The sponsor, Centre International Mathematiques Pures et Appliquees, sponsors conferences and summer schools especially for mathematicians and students from the developing world, using funding mainly from the French government and UNESCO. There were many students and mathematicians in this school from Turkey and Pakistan, and a few from Uzbekistan, Iran, Iraq, Brazil. I got a refresher course in singularity theory, and also had some time with colleagues to discuss some research. We also had a few adventures (e.g., after 24 hours of travel, I wore my travelling clothes for four more days while BA dug my luggage out of some basement at Heathrow), and I further developed my taste for the traditional music of the Balkans. I had lots of fun playing tunes with my new friend, singularity-theorist/flautist David Mond. It was a unique and very interesting experience. Here is a page of photographs, and here's a bunch more.

Oberwolfach Mini-workshop on Topology of Closed 1-forms and Cohomology Jumping Loci I attended this workshop in August, 2007, at the mathematical research institute in Oberwolfach, Germany. This is one of my favorite places on the face of the earth. I gave a 60-minute talk, and participated in a very stimulating week of discussions. I learned something about robotics and topological complexity.

Some other conferences from recent years:

Recent Developments in Arrangements and Configuration Spaces a.k.a. the Yuz-Fest. I co-organized a workshop at MSRI in August 2006, in honor of my esteemed colleague Sergey Yuzvinsky's 70th birthday.

Hyperplane Arrangements and Applications - I was one of the organizers for the semester-long program at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, Fall of 2004. Here is a web page describing the program. I was also an organizer and lecturer in a related two-week summer school for graduate students in Eugene in early August. Here's a page describing my East Bay adventure.

Arrangements of Hyperplanes - Algebra, Combinatorics, Geometry, Topology In May, 2005, I travelled to the south of Switzerland for a large arrangements meeting. I gave a talk about multinets, and worked with my co-authors on an ongoing project. Here's the web page - check out the list of participants and you'll see what "large" means.

Geometry and Combinatorics in Arizona I co-organized a special session called "Geometry and Combinatorics" at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Phoenix in January, and hosted a workshop at NAU in Flagstaff, also called "Geometry and Combinatorics," preceding the meeting, on January 4-5. Here is the webpage for both conferences.

Oberwolfach Mini-workshop on Combinatorial Stratifications in Topology and Geometry. In November, 2003, I visited the wonderful mathematical research institute in Oberwolfach, Germany, ("the garden of Eden for mathematicians") for a one-week mini-workshop. Here's the meeting page from a previous visit, in March, 2002, for the Oberwolfach Mini-workshop on Cohomology Jumping Loci. You can read the final report and look at the picture of the thirteen participants standing on the library steps. (Front row: Eva-Maria Feichtner (Zurich), Alex Suciu (Boston), Boris Shapiro (Stockholm), Hiroaki Terao (Tokyo); Second row: Jose Cogolludo (Madrid), Michael Shapiro (East Lansing), yours truly, Hal Schenck (College Station); Third row: Alex Dimca (Bordeaux), Sergey Yuzvinsky (Eugene), Danny Matei (Rochester), Graham Denham (London, Ontario), Dan Cohen (Baton Rouge). This was a really great conference!

Other interests of mine...

I also play traditional music—Celtic (Irish, Scottish, and Breton), bluegrass, old-timey and fiddle tunes, jazz and swing, and other eclectic stuff—on the mandolin and bouzouki, and I frail old-time Appalachian tunes on an open-back banjo. I play with several string bands, but only occasionally: Faint Praise, with Bill Vernieu and Joanna Joseph; The Joan Wyatt Band, with Joan, Bill, and Reno and Sheila McCormick from down in Camp Verde; Duo Peligroso, with Howard Grodman.

I am board member and former president of Flagstaff Friends of Traditional Music. The seventh annual Flagstaff Folk Festival takes place June 28-29. We are also producing a three-day bluegrass and acoustic music festival, the third annual Pickin' in the Pines Bluegrass and Acoustic Music Festival, at the Pine Mountain Amphitheater at Fort Tuthill, September 12-14, 2008. Featured performers this year include The Del McCoury Band, Nashville Bluegrass Band, Valerie Smith and Liberty Pike, Carolina Chocolate Drops, The Billy Pilgrims, Spring Creek, Sawmill Road, and Burnett Family Bluegrass. Visit the web page: pickininthepines.org. Early-bird weekend passes are only $50 through June 30, available online and at Arizona Music Pro, Rainbow's End, and the Wine Loft in downtown Flagstaff.

Musical stuff - Some old pictures and sound files of my mandolins, some music I've transcribed in abc format, pictures of me and my friends playing for people, stuff like that. (Note: The Summit no longer belongs to me - in its place I have a 1983 Steve Carlson-signed Flatiron. Maybe I'll put up some pictures and sound one of these days.)

Darcy Falk Textile Arts My beloved wife Darcy Falk is a gnarly artist and writer. We have two sons, Keenan and David, ages 22 and 18. Keenan's married, fixes cars for a living; David's a dance major at Coconino Community College.