Michael Stillman

Michael Stillman is a Professor of Mathematics at Cornell University, affiliated with the Nonlinear Algebra research group at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences (MPI MiS). His work focuses on computational algebraic geometry, commutative algebra, and their applications to theoretical physics, particularly string theory. He is a principal author of the open-source computer algebra system Macaulay2, which underpins much of his research in algorithm development and computational methods for algebraic structures.

Stillman's research includes tackling computationally intensive problems in string theory, such as calculating nef cones and semigroups for Calabi-Yau varieties linked to toric geometry, and optimizing cohomology computations for line bundles on toric varieties. His recent collaboration with Mastroeni and Schenck explored quadratic Gorenstein algebras and the Koszul property.