Tien Chih

A

Tien Chih, PhD

I am an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Oxford College of Emory University.

Mathematics Professor.

  • Phone: TBA
  • Email: tien.chih (at) emory.edu
  • Office: Pierce 125
  • Address:

    Oxford College of Emory University
    801 Emory Street
    Oxford, GA 30054, USA

About Me

Education

  • Ph.D in Mathematics, University of Montana, 2014
  • M.A. in Mathematics, University of Montana, 2009
  • B.A. in Mathematics, UH Hilo, 2007

Personal

I grew up in Hilo, Hawaii where I graduated from Hilo High School. After briefly attending college in Chicago, I took a break from school and worked various odd jobs few years. Afterwards, I returned to Hilo where I attended the University of Hawaii at Hilo. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life, but after a life changing class with Dr. Ramon Figueroa-Centeno, I decided that I wanted to be a Mathematician, and that I wanted to help other students find their love for Mathematics! After that I attended the University of Montana for graduate school where I earned a Doctorate in Mathematics. I held the position of Assistant Professor at Newberry College and MSUB before joining the faculty of Oxford College of Emory University in 2022!


I enjoy cooking, gardening, biking, camping and spending time with my family!

Germany
Family
Eva
Archer

Curriculum Vitae

Here is a link to my full curriculum vitae

Selected Publications

Leadership & Organizational Roles

  • "mathtech.org" A community dedicated to using open source technology to enhance math education, especially in terms of accessibility and pedagogically.
  • "Journal of Math Circles" An open access, peer-reviewed journal publishing the scholarship of math outreach, associate editor, 2020-present.
  • "Circle on The Road" A workshop for new and experienced Math Circle leaders, co-organizer, 2021.
  • "Talk Math With Your Friends" An online colloquium presenting fun, entry-level talks, co-organizer, 2020-2022.

News Items

Teaching

"The “freedoms of mathematics” include the freedom to solve problems, to explore new directions, to open one’s imagination, and to land in a welcoming community." - Francis Su

Click here for my teaching statement.

Linear Optimization Class.

I was fortunate that I returned to school to rediscover my love and passion for mathematics. This was in large part to the excellent faculty at UH Hilo, and in particular, my mentor Dr. Ramon Figueroa-Centeno. It was then that I made the decision to become a mathematician, and in particular, to become a teacher-scholar who helped other students redefine their relationship with mathematics. Unfortunately, math is not the most beloved subject amongst students, and so a lot of care and effort is needed to help them reforge a new positive relationship with the subject. Students frequently are turned off by math because they see themselves as "not a math person", or they don't see the relevance of mathematics to themselves. I now focus on student centered pedagogy, giving them ownership of their own learning. I center the view that everyone can grow to love, appreciate and excel at mathematics.

Authored OER Materials

Research

"I like crossing the imaginary boundaries people set up between different fields—it's very refreshing. There are lots of tools, and you don't know which one would work. It's about being optimistic and trying to connect things."-Maryam Mirzakhani


Click here for my research statement.

My current research focuses on taking ideas from classical homotopy in topology and extending them to graphs via \(\times\)-homotopy. One could just consider the homotopy of graphs as simplicial spaces, but this isn't very interesting! Instead we define homotopy categorically, with looped paths taking the place of the unit interval, and graph homomorphisms taking the place of continuous functions. In our first paper, my collaborator Dr. Laura Scull and I gave a concrete description on how the "continuous" motions of classical homotopy translate to "discrete" motions in graphs. The gif below depicts a homotopy between two functions.

Geometry Students explore affine geometry.

One may suspect that results about classical homotopy would translate readily, but these are really very different settings. For example the product of two connected spaces is always connected, but the product of connected graphs need not be connected! So it isn't obvious that all classical homotopy results have analogues in \(\times\)-homotopy, and it's not clear how these analogues, when they exist, differ. This makes this an interesting line of research! We have several papers developing \(\times\)-homotopy, with more planned and on the way!

Undergraduate Research

Our line of work is particularly suited for undergraduate scholars: the objects and functions are finite and concrete, the area is new so it is easy to pick unexplored topics, and while it is new research, one can look to established results in classical homotopy for inspiration and guidance.

Dr. Scull and I applied for and the Center for Undergraduate Research in Mathematics (CURM) mini-grant, which we recieved for the 20-21 academic year. I supervised a team of student scholars who examined the homotopies of automorphisms & endomorphisms of graphs. They gave a talk on their work in the Talk Math With Your Friends online seminar, and wrote a jupyter notebook visualizing their computations in an interactive way!

At Oxford, I've advised a student project on computing the fundamental groups of Hamming graphs which has since been published in PUMP, and a team of students enumerating (co)saturated transfer systems on lattices.

If you're interested in graphs, groups, shapes, enumeration, coding, or just playing around in a cool new setting, I would love to talk with you about collaboration! Please contact me if you are interested.

Math Circle

"Mathematics is not about numbers, equations, computations, or algorithms: it is about understanding." –William Paul Thurston


Math Circle. Math Circle.

I am the founder of the Oxford College Math Circle. We play games, explore activities, work on puzzles, and work together to discover new and wonderful mathematics!

To expand the reach of Math Circles, I've become involved in the leadership and organization of Math Circles. I serve as the associate editor of the Journal of Math Circles, program coordinator of the MCTS SIGMAA, and was a co-organizer for the 2021 Circle on the Road workshop.