Eric C. Peterson

I'm currently involved in a project whose goal is, hopefully, to investigate higher-level chromatic phenomena related to the sigma-orientation of Ando, Hopkins, and Strickland, the core of which is an isomorphism of group schemes between spec H_* BU<2k> and the formal group of k-dimensional multiplicative 2-cocycles. We have recently produced a complete 2-local description of the algebraic side of this correspondence that demonstrates that spec H_* BU<2k> cannot be the "right" choice for the topological side; exploring the exact failure of this correspondence, how bad the damage is, and what space can be used instead to produce the correct model are all open questions we now seek to answer.

In more general terms, I am interested in the interaction between algebraic topology, algebraic geometry, and the relevant subfields of more pure category theory. I'm currently doing research under the direction of Matt Ando.

As an undergraduate I was (on paper, at least) a computer science major, where I had an interest in automated verification, distributed systems, programming language structure and design (including compiler design and implementation), all of which generally fall under the title of "formal methods". I wrote a thesis with Prof. Elsa Gunter, and Prof. Gul Agha is another faculty member at UIUC that shares similar interests.