Yi Lai

Yi Lai is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). He earned his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 2021 under Richard Bamler and served as a Szego Assistant Professor at Stanford University (2021–2024), mentored by Otis Chodosh. His research centers on geometric analysis, with a focus on Ricci flows, steady gradient solitons, and the geometry of 3-manifolds.

Dr. Lai's work explores the construction and classification of geometric structures like flying wing solitons, convergence properties of Ricci flow, and curvature behavior in low-dimensional manifolds. His publications frequently address long-time existence of geometric flows and symmetry in solitons, blending PDE theory with differential geometry.

At UCI, he teaches courses such as Linear Algebra (Math 121A). No awards, grants, or supervised students are mentioned in available sources.