معرفی
William Yun Chen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). He holds additional campus affiliations within the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. Prior to UIUC, he was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University and McGill University, and a Member at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS). He earned his PhD in 2016 from Penn State under Winnie Li's supervision, specializing in arithmetic geometry. His research focuses on the interplay between group theory, algebraic geometry, and number theory, particularly through monodromy actions of étale fundamental groups.
His work includes moduli interpretations of noncongruence modular curves, integrality properties of noncongruence modular forms, and studies of tamely ramified covers of the projective line. Recent contributions address Nielsen equivalence classes of finite groups and Bourgain-Gamburd-Sarnak conjectures on Markoff triples. He also explores arithmetic monodromy actions and exceptional sequences in braid groups.
Chen’s publications appear in prestigious journals like Annals of Mathematics, Algebra and Number Theory, and Mathematische Annalen. He actively supervises research seminars, including a 2024 reading seminar on Katz-Mazur’s Arithmetic moduli of elliptic curves. His teaching spans courses like Applied Linear Algebra, Number Theory, and Calculus at UIUC, Rutgers, Columbia, and Penn State.
Chen maintains a code repository for computing moduli stacks of elliptic curves with nonabelian level structures, generating data on finite groups and their geometric properties. His photography, showcased on his personal site, complements his academic pursuits.
