Math professor publishes book chapter and presents at special session

Michael Penn

Randolph College mathematics professor Michael Penn recently published a chapter in the Springer INdAM book series. The chapter, titled “Permutation Orbifolds of Fermionic Vertex Superalgebras,” was part of the book Affine, Vertex, and W-algebras. The work described orbifold algebras for rank 3 free and symplectic fermion algebras, and in the case of the free fermion algebra, provided proofs of several coincidental isomorphisms.

Penn also organized a special session at the upcoming American Mathematical Society Spring Sectional Meeting at the University of Virginia titled, “Quantum Algebra and Geometry,” which will run March 13-15 and include researchers from Harvard, MIT, the University of California at Berkeley and other institutions. In addition, Penn’s research student Jude Quintero ’20 will present as part of the Sunday session.