For students

My office is open!

If you’d like to talk about anything, please feel free to stop by my office (LL817B). You don’t need to talk math. I’d love to hear your story, and share my story as a first-generation student, an immigrant, and a math Ph.D. You can drop in or send me an email. Either is okay.

I usually reply to students’ emails within 48 hours. If you haven’t heard back from me in two days, please feel free to contact me again.

Math Help Room

Math Help Room is where you can get free help. It is located in LL 810 and 812. You can find the schedule here. Faculty members will stay and help you. We encourage you to use the Math Help Room to get help in math or just discuss math with your peers. 

Math department seminar

Mathematics seminar is an invaluable opportunity to expand your understanding and viewpoint on mathematics. I strongly encourage you to attend as many as department seminars. Afraid of not understanding anything? Here is some advice from Ravi Vakil. It is written for graduate students, but the same advice can also be applied to undergraduates.

Interested in pursuing Ph.D. program?

Please contact me and other professors. Earlier is better.

Letter of Recommendation

I believe writing letters of recommendation is an important duty. I want to provide the best letter I could write, and surely you also want a strong letter. Here are some guidelines to help you and myself.

  • Please contact me at least a month in advance.
  • You have to waive your right to see letters I submit.
  • You should register me as a reference writer on the electronic system. For electronic applications, my e-mail address is hmoon8 at fordham dot edu. Please fill out all parts of online application.

If I agree to write a letter, then please send me (as an e-mail) the following:

  • Your resume
  • A list of programs for which you need a letter along with each separate deadline listed
  • All of the documents you will submit (ex. statement of purpose, transcript)
  • A list of other letter writers

I will try to submit my letter a week before the deadline. Usually, I let you know after I submit the letter. It is perfectly fine to send me a brief e-mail to ask me or remind me to send the letter.

Research experience

If you are interested in having some research experience, then I can provide you some projects. Please contact me (email preferred) to make an appointment.

I am working on algebraic geometry, and have been using mathematical tools from algebra, geometry, topology, and combinatorics. The projects I can provide are, for instance, some combinatorial counting or classification problems motivated from higher dimensional advanced algebraic geometry. If you prefer, some projects may have computer programming components. Of course, if you have your own research project, that would be fantastic.

Here are some results from my previous summer research with students:

  1. (with A. Campbell, F. Dedvukaj, D. McCormick III, and J. Morales) On algebraic space filling curves. preprint.
  2. (with R. Jain and P. Wu) Distribution of the number of zeros of polynomials over a finite field. preprint.
  3. (with F. Azad, Z. Chen, M. Dreyer, and R. Horowitz) Presentations of the Roger-Yang generalized skein algebra. Algebr. Geom. Topol. 21 (2021), no. 6, 3199–3220.
  4. (with C. Summers, J. von Albade, and R. Xie) Birational contractions of $\bar{M}_{0,n}$ and combinatorics of extremal assignments. J. Algebraic Comb., Vol. 47, (, no. 1, 51–90, supporting codes.

In any case, doing mathematical research requires some preparation. Usually, if you want to conduct a research project during the summer, at least in the spring semester, you need to read some background material. I can meet you regularly during the spring semester, but you are the one who read the article/textbook independently. Discrete Mathematics and Linear Algebra are prerequisites for most of the projects I can imagine.

There are internal research grants (Summer Research Assistant Fellowship and FCLC Research and Creative Practice Grants) you may apply. If you are junior or senior, then you are eligible. The proposal deadline is (usually) early March. So please contact me in advance.