SFU Research Masterclass Series: "From Metallurgy Trainee to SFU Prof"

About the Speaker

About the Interviewee: Dr. Pavol Hell is a professor of computing science at Simon Fraser University. He started his mathematical studies at Charles University in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and moved to Canada in August 1968. He has obtained his M.Sc. from McMaster University, under the joint supervision of Dr. Gert Sabidussi and Dr. Alex Rosa, and his Ph.D. at the Universite de Montreal, with Dr. Sabidussi. In his Ph.D. research he pioneered the study of graph retracts. Dr. Hell describes his area of interest as "computational combinatorics", including algorithmic graph theory and complexity of graph problems.

Dr. Hell co-authored the book "Graph and Homomorphisms" with his long-term collaborator and friend Jaroslav Nešet?il. He is a managing editor of the Journal of Graph Theory, and was named a fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) in 2012.

Dr. Hell's Erd?s number 1.

About the Interviewer: Krystal Guo is a Ph. D. candidate at the Department of Mathematics, Simon Fraser University. She completed her Bachelor of Mathematics, Honours Combinatorics & Optimization Co-operative Program, and Honours Pure Mathematics, with distinction, at the University of Waterloo in 2009. Krystal obtained her Master of Mathematics, Combinatorics & Optimization, under the supervision of Dr. Christopher Godsil in 2010 at the University of Waterloo.

In 2013 Krystal was a finalist at the SFU Three Minute Thesis Competition.

Krystal's Erd?s number is 2.