Pure math takes PhD across the world | Science - University of Victoria News

Discovering pure mathematics by Vimala Jeevanandam, Communications Officer at University of Victoria.

Chris Bruce, a graduating PhD is continuing onto Queen Mary, University of London with a prestigious NSERC Banting Postdoctoral fellowship. 
Photo: Vimala Jeevanandam

Nine years after transferring to UVic as an undergraduate student, Chris Bruce is leaving with a PhD in Mathematics and a prestigious NSERC Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship.

In that time, he has proven himself to be an exceptional mathematician.

Born and raised in Victoria, Bruce started his undergraduate degree at Camosun College, and had quite a different path in mind. “I thought I’d major in business or economics,” he says. He had already started an online business, selling parts for mountain bikes. But after transferring to UVic and taking an introduction to abstract algebra course, he knew his path was changing.

He explores connections between two areas of mathematics – algebraic number theory, an ancient field of mathematics which deals with prime numbers, rational numbers, and their generalizations, and operator algebras, a relatively new field of math that was originally developed to model systems in quantum physics...

During his undergraduate degree, he completed a semester in Moscow. Since then, he’s taken courses at the University of Wollongong in Australia, attended workshops at the Hausdorff Research Institute for Mathematics in Germany, and developed collaborations in the United Kingdom and Japan.
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Source: University of Victoria News