Webpage of Catherine Eva Pfaff
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Hi!
I am currently visiting Montreal, QC and will be a l'Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques Invited Researcher (Paris, France) April-May 2026.
Most recently, I was an Institute for Advanced Study Member
(Princeton, NJ) September 2024 - July 2025.
I'm an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Queen's University
Fax: (613) 533-2964
Email: catherine.pfaff "at" gmail.com
Welcome to my site!
I'm an American from a small town (primarily established by my grandfather) in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. I am also a Canadian permanent resident.
A strong thread in my research is geodesics (length-minimizing paths) in the parameter space of metric groups (Culler-Vogtmann Outer space) and their connections to counting problems in the outer automorphism group of the free group. I also work with metric surfaces and their parameter space.
Of particular current interest is connections between metric graphs, metric surfaces, symbolic dynamics, theoretical physics, and computer science. Beyond this, I like applications of topological/ geometric group theoretic ways of thinking to other fields, including soccer analytics.
I earned my PhD from
Rutgers University (New Brunswick)
under the advisement of
Lee Mosher. I spent three years living in Europe (Barcelona, Spain;
Marseille, France; and
Bielefeld, Germany). I was an undergraduate student at the University of Chicago
My passion for research is heavily rivaled by my passion for teaching.
My students are one of the greatest joys in my life.
I am proud of Sana Arastehfar (Masters, co-supervised with Christian Muise, Queen's Computing) and
Troy Zeier (Masters, co-supervised with Mikhail Nediak, Smith School of Business) for their successful graduation. Congrats to Paige Hillen, who is starting as a University of Wisconsin - Madison RTG postdoc fall 2025!
I have supervised graduate and undergraduate students in geometric group theory, topological data analysis, linear temporal logic, and geometric soccer analytics.
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Academic Bio