Tim Penttila

Other academic interests:
Theoretical computer science, mathematical physics and bioinformatics.

I am a professor in the Department of Mathematics at CSU.
I moved here from the University of Western Australia in December, 2006.

Teaching

Spring 2009
M366 Intorduction to Abstract Algebra Office hours 11 MF Lectures 10MWF
M602 Advanced Combinatorics Lectures 2MWF
Students:

Luke Bayens who's working towards a Ph. D. with me on problems in finite geometry, including those about groups of hyperovals, flag-transitive Laguerre planes and hemisystems of Hermitian varieties.
Cayla McBee who's working towards a Ph. D. with me on phylogenetic combinatorics.
Eric Nelson who's working towards a Ph. D. with me on problems in finite geometry, including those about transitive BLT-sets.
Andrew Hudson who's working towards a Masters with me on translation planes.

I am always looking for graduate students. Of my former students listed below, Rebecca Gower, Katrina Hicks and Nick Gill completed doctorates in Queensland, Oxford and Cambridge, and Nicholas Hamilton, Ivano Pinneri, Tim Boykett, Blair Williams, Maska Law and John Bamberg had postdoctoral positions in Gent(Belgium), Rome(Italy), Linz(Austria), London(England), Rome(Italy), and Gent(Belgium) respectively. Shane Kelly has recently completed a Masters in algebraic geometry in France and Italy. My former students, Nicholas Hamilton and John Bamberg, won the Kirkman medal of the Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications as did my research associate, Matthew Brown.

Former Students:

Ph. D.
John Bamberg (jointly supervised with Cheryl Praeger) Thesis : Innately transitive groups (2003)
Maska Law Thesis : Flocks, generalised quadrangles and translation planes from BLT-sets (2003)
Blair Williams Thesis : Ovoids of hyperbolic and parabolic spaces (1998)
Tim Boykett (jointly supervised with Gunter Pilz) Thesis : Algebraic aspects of reversible computation (1996)
Ivano Pinneri Thesis : Flocks, generalised quadrangles and hyperovals (1996)
Nicholas Hamilton Thesis : Maximal arcs in finite projective planes and associated structures in projective spaces (1995)

Masters
Eric Nelson Thesis : Two-intersection sets with respect to hyperplanes in projective spaces (2008)
Honours
Luke Bayens Thesis : Hyperovals and their groups (2006)
Shane Kelly(jointly supervised with Michael Giudici).
Thesis : Tight sets and m-ovoids in polar spaces (2005).
Ranga Muhandiramge (jointly supervised with Jingbo Wang)
Thesis : Spin Adapted Configuration Interaction Study of N-electron Quantum Dots (2003)
Danijela Cvoro Thesis : Poincare's theorem for compact polygons(2000)
Nick Gill Thesis : Galois theory and orthogonal geometry(1998)
Maska Law Thesis : The Klein correspondence (1997)
Kenneth Phillips Thesis : Ovals, conics and Segre's theorem(1997)
Nicholas Hamilton Thesis : Group representation theory and applications to quantum mechanics (1991)
Ivano Pinneri Thesis : Propositional calculus of quantum mechanics (1990)
Katrina Hicks (jointly supervised with Michael Alder) Thesis : Automata (1990)
Rebecca Gower Thesis : Finite Generalized Quadrangles (1989)

Honorary students
Michel Lavrauw, Eindhoven, Netherlands (2001)
Elisabeth Kuijken, Gent, Belgium (2002)
Rocco Trombetti, Napoli, Italy (2002)


Research associates:
Cheryl Praeger Australian Research Council Australian Professorial Fellow (2007-11)
Michael Giudici Australian Research Council Australian Research Fellow (2007-11)
John Bamberg Australian Research Council Australian Postdoctoral Fellow (2004-6)
Matthew Brown Australian Research Council Senior Research Associate (2003-5)
Australian Research Council Research Associate (1998-9)
Keith Martin Australian Research Council Research Associate (1992-6)