Michaela Vancliff
- Email: vancliffuta.edu
- Website
- University of Texas-Arlington
- Status: Faculty
- Department: Math,
- Will Mentor: Doctoral students, Pre-doctoral students
Areas of Expertise
Pure Mathematics,
Research Interests
Algebra (Primary)
Bio
I obtained my Mathematics Ph.D. in 1993 from the University of Washington (Mathematics) under the supervision of S. Paul Smith. The University of Washington is in Seattle, WA, U.S.A. I obtained my Mathematics bachelor degree in 1986 from the University of Warwick (Mathematics), which is in the Midlands in England. I spent 6 months of my last academic year of my PhD in the Department of Mathematics of the University of Auckland, in Auckland, New Zealand.
After graduating from Warwick, I was a high school teacher in greater London for one academic year, after which I began my Ph.D. After getting my Ph.D, I worked for 2 years at the University of Southern California (Mathematics) in Los Angeles, CA, U.S.A.; and then for one year at the University of Antwerp in Antwerp, Belgium; and then for 2 years at the University of Oregon ( Mathematics ) in Eugene, OR, U.S.A. In August 1998, I began working in the Mathematics Department of the University of Texas at Arlington in Arlington, Texas, where I am now a professor.
I work in the subject of non-commutative algebra. Broadly speaking, this subject is about solving systems of "polynomial" equations where the solutions are functions (typically differential operators or matrices, etc). This means that we cannot assume that the variables in the equations commute with each other. Such equations arise in the theory of quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, physics, etc.