Logic: General Information

The graduate program in mathematical logic at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is one of the most active such programs in the world, with a large community of faculty and students. Most aspects of the subject are represented here, especially model theory and its applications and descriptive set theory. A particular emphasis of our program is on the connections of logic to other important areas of mathematics.

Mathematical logic has been represented in the Illinois Mathematics Department since the late 1950s. William (Bill) Boone joined the department in 1958 and from then until his death in 1983, he guided a steady expansion of the logic program. Early arrivals on the faculty were Kenneth Appel (1961; retired 1992) and Gaisi Takeuti (1963; retired 1992), followed by Carl Jockusch and Paul Schupp in 1967. In this early period, the focus of the program was on computability theory and decision problems (especially in group theory) as well as on proof theory and set theory. Since the 1970s there has been a growing emphasis on model theory and its applications.

These web pages are intended to provide a reasonably detailed picture of our program in mathematical logic. We warmly encourage interested people to come in contact with the program, perhaps to join it. Faculty members and graduate students in the program are the best sources of information about it. Interested people with questions should feel free to contact any of us and we will do our best to provide answers.

Prospective Graduate Students
Admission of graduate students is to the Mathematics Department in general and not to any specific research program; students are free to move between research specialties once they are here. Information about the Department and its requirements, and about the admissions process can be found at the web page of the Illinois Graduate Mathematics Program .

Current Illinois Graduate Students
As noted above, graduate students in the Illinois Mathematics Department are freely able to choose their research area, and most students come to graduate school still looking for the area they want to pursue. The best way to explore logic as a possible topic is to take some graduate courses in the area, beginning with Math 570. This is one of the courses in the department's Comprehensive Exam system.

Prospective Postdocs and Faculty
All hiring of postdocs and regular faculty is done by the Mathematics Department and there are rarely positions of any kind advertised solely for logicians. Information about the current hiring program of the department can be found via the "Positions" link from the department home page . Logic is regarded as one of the research strengths of the department, and we have been successful in convincing the department to hire faculty and postdocs in this area.

Prospective Visiting Faculty
The logic program is able to invite some visitors for limited periods of time. Such visits are best arranged by contacting a specific Illinois faculty member to discuss the possibilities.