Kate Hurley's Home Page

Contact Information

Address:	School of Mathematics
	Georgia Institute of Technology
	Atlanta, GA 30332
Office:	258 Skiles
Phone:	404-894-1833
Fax:	404-894-4409
E-mail:	hurley@math.gatech.edu
Office hours:	W 2-3 pm, Th 3-4 pm or by appointment

Course Web Sites

Spring 2008:	Math 4280	Introduction to Information Theory
Fall 2007:	Math 1522	Linear Algebra for Calc.
	Math 2401	Calculus III
Spring 2007:	Math 4012	Algebraic Structures for Coding Theory
Fall 2006:	Math 2401	Calculus III
Spring 2006:	Math 1502	Calculus II
Fall 2005:	Math 1501	Calculus I
	Math 2401	Calculus III

Previous Classes

Research Interests
My research is in vertex operator algebras (VOAs), which are structure rich algebraic objects. (Despite the name, they are technically neither algebras nor operator algebras.) Vertex operator algebras have roots in Lie algebras, finite groups (in particular the monster group) and string theory.

My research concerns modularity properties of VOAs. One can associate a q-graded function called a graded trace or one-point correlation function to a given VOA, and in some cases these functions are modular forms. In my thesis, there are two main results concerning which modular forms are realized as graded traces. One result, Highest-weight vectors of the moonshine module with non-zero graded trace, has appeared in the Journal of Algebra: volume 261 (2003) pp 411-433. The other result, The space of graded traces for holomorphic VOAs of small central charge, is available on the Mathematics ArXiv: arXiv:math.QA/0606282.

Vita
I completed my Ph.D. in March of 2002, under the direction of Geoffrey Mason of the University of California at Santa Cruz. Since then I have worked at the University of South Carolina, Penn State University and now Georgia Tech. I am married to Mohammad Ghomi, a geometer, and we have a cat, who has no recorded mathematical output. On January 6th 2004, we were joined by a son Reza who does not have to be a mathematician, honest.