Research

My research interests are in discrete math and theoretical computer science, with particular focus on probabilistic and extremal combinatorics.  I’m always happy to present my work, and I generally have funding available for this purpose (so feel free to email!).  As a silly example of stuff I like, my recorded dissertation defense is available here: part 1 and part 2 with slides.

For students: I keep an active (and robust) list of projects suitable for student involvement.  If you might want to find out more about what math research is like, please do reach out!  I’m sure I have something you’ll find accessible (and hopefully fun!).

Publications and pre-prints

Names in bold indicate undergraduate researchers.

  1. Aaron Berger, Ross Berkowitz, Pat Devlin, and Van Vu. Universality for real roots of random polynomials. 2019+. In preparation.
  2. Ross Berkowitz and Pat Devlin.  Bribing three voters in majority dynamics almost always suffices.  2019+.  In preparation.
  3. Pat Devlin and Tony Zeng. Fractals in Kaprekar’s function. 2019+. In preparation.
  4. Pat Devlin and Stephen Newman.  Notes on the curling conjecture.  2019+.  In preparation.
  5. Matija Buric, Pat Devlin, Mo Hendon, Dru Horne, and Ben Lund. Perfect matchings and derangements on graphs. 2019+. Submitted. Preprint, arXiv:1906.05908.
  6. Dagur Ásgeirsson and Pat Devlin. Palindromes in finite groups. 2018+.  Submitted.  Preprint, arXiv:1904.00467.
  7. Aaron Berger, Ross Berkowitz, Pat Devlin, Michael Doppelt, Sonali Durham, Tessa Murthy, and Harish Vemuri. Connected-intersecting graph families. 2018+. Submitted.  Preprint, arXiv:1901.01616.
  8. Ross Berkowitz, Pat Devlin, Catherine Lee, Henry Reichard, and David Townley. Expected chromatic number of random subgraphs. 2018+. Submitted.  Preprint, arXiv:1811.02018.
  9. Deepak Bal, Ross Berkowitz, Pat Devlin, and Mathias Schacht. Hamiltonian Berge cycles in random hypergraphs. 2018+. Submitted. Preprint, arXiv:1809.03596.
  10. Hüseyin Acan, Pat Devlin, and Jeff Kahn. Proof of an entropy conjecture of Leighton and Moitra. Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series A, 161:299–308, 2019.
  11. David Brandfonbrener, Pat Devlin, Netanel Friedenberg, Yuxuan Ke, Steffen Marcus, Henry Reichard, and Ethan Sciamma. Two-vertex generators of Jacobians of graphs. The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics, 25, 2018.
  12. Ross Berkowitz and Pat Devlin. A stability result using the matrix norm to bound the permanent. Israel Journal of Mathematics, 224(1):437–454, 2018.
  13. Pat Devlin and Jeff Kahn. Perfect fractional matchings in k-out hypergraphs. The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics, 24(3), 2017.
  14. Pat Devlin and Jeff Kahn. On stability in the Erdős-Ko-Rado Theorem. SIAM J. Discrete Math., 30(2):1283–1289, 2015.
  15. Pat Devlin and Edinah K Gnang. Primes Appearing in Prime Tower Factorization. 2014.
  16. Pat Devlin and Howard J Nuer. A strange family of Calabi-Yau 3-folds. String-Math 2014, 93:245, 2014.
  17. Pat Devlin and Edinah K Gnang. Some integer formula encodings and related algorithms. Advances in Applied Mathematics, 51(4):536–541, 2013.
  18. Pat Devlin. Integer Subsets with High Volume and Low Perimeter. Integers, 12, 2012.

Advised student work not appearing above

  1. Sabrina Evans. Joy ride: how subway structure affects citizen happiness. 2019. Senior thesis.
  2. Maxime Lukianchikov. Mathematics and magic. 2019. Student thesis.
  3. Henry Reichard. Codes on the space of hypergraphs. 2018.  Senior thesis.
  4. Yunus Tunçbilek. Rare graphs and anti-Ramsey multiplicities. 2018. Senior thesis.
  5. David Brandfonbrener. Algebraic graph theory, strongly regular graphs, and Conway’s 99 problem. 2017. Senior thesis.
  6. Sage Lazzaro. We solved an MTV reality show weeks before the finale using simple math–mathematical spoilers ahead. The Observer, November 2014.