Talks

This page contains typed notes and/or slides for some of the talks I have given, along with links to some that have been videoed. A pdf file containing a list of all of the talks I have given across my career can be downloaded here

List of Talks

and an abbreviated list containing the only most important ones may be found in my CV. To reach the videos, either scroll to the bottom of this page or use the link below.

Jump to: Notes and Slides | Videos

Notes and Slides

Typed notes and/or slides for selected talks, in reverse chronological order.

• Anticanonical pairs with involution

  Poster based upon joint work with V. Alexeev, presented at the 3rd British Algebraic Geometry Meeting, held in Cambridge in September 2017.

• Degenerations of plane sextics

  Short research talk based upon joint work with V. Alexeev (available in the publications section of this website), given at the 2014 CMS Winter Meeting, held in Hamilton in December 2014.

• The arithmetic/thin dichotomy for Calabi-Yau threefolds and families of K3 surfaces

  Short research talk based upon the paper Families of lattice polarized K3 surfaces with monodromy (available in the publications section of this website) given at the 2014 AMS Southeastern Spring Sectional Meeting, held at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in March 2014.

• Families of lattice polarized K3 surfaces with monodromy

  Short research talk based upon the paper with the same title (available in the publications section of this website) given at the 2013 CMS Winter Meeting, held in Ottawa in December 2013.

• Variations of Hodge structure and the period map

  Introductory talk for graduate students given at the Concentrated Graduate Course preceeding the Workshop on Hodge Theory in String Theory, held at the Fields Institute, Toronto in November 2013. These notes eventually formed the basis for the paper An introduction to Hodge structures, available in the publications section of this website. This talk is also available as a video, linked in the videos section below.

• Moduli of K3 surfaces

  Introductory talk for graduate students given at the Concentrated Graduate Course preceeding the Workshop on Modular Forms around String Theory, held at the Fields Institute, Toronto in September 2013. These notes eventually formed the basis for the paper The geometry and moduli of K3 surfaces, available in the publications section of this website. This talk is also available as a video, linked in the videos section below.

• The 14th case VHS and K3 fibrations III: elliptic surfaces

  Short research talk based upon the paper The 14th Case VHS via K3 Fibrations (available in the publications section of this website) given at the 2012 CMS Winter Meeting, held in Montréal in December 2012.

• Degenerations of K3 surfaces of degree two

  Research talk based upon the paper Degenerations of K3 surfaces of degree two (available in the publications section of this website) given at the Workshop on Hodge Theory and String Duality, held at the Banff International Research Station in December 2011, and at the University of Georgia Algebraic Geometry Seminar in February 2012.

• Degenerations of K3 surfaces of degree two

  A slightly shorter version of the research talk above given at the Workshop on Arithmetic and Geometry of K3 Surfaces and Calabi-Yau Threefolds held at the Fields Institute, Toronto, in August 2011.

• Models for threefolds fibred by K3 surfaces of degree two

  Short research talk based upon my D.Phil. thesis given at the Young Researchers in Mathematics conference held at the University of Warwick in April 2011 and at the Géométrie Algébrique en Liberté XIX conference held at the Freie Universität Berlin, in July 2011.

• Models for threefolds fibred by K3 surfaces of degree two

  Research talk based upon my D.Phil. thesis given at the CALF seminar held at Imperial College, London, in April 2011, at the Liverpool Arithmetic and Algebraic Geometry Seminar in April 2011, and at the COW seminar held at the University of Warwick in May 2011.

• Models for threefolds fibred by K3 surfaces of degree two

  Talk based upon the one below, given to the Oxford Junior Geometry and Topology Group in October 2010

• Models for ample <2>-polarised K3-fibrations

  Research talk based upon some of the material in my D.Phil. thesis given at the CALF/EMS Geometry Day held at the University of Glasgow in April 2010.

• Degenerations of <2>-polarised K3 surfaces

  Research talk based upon the material in an earlier draft of the paper Degenerations of K3 Surfaces of Degree Two (available in the publications section of this website), given to the Oxford Junior Geometry and Topology group in October 2009.

• Hodge theory, period mappings and the moduli of K3's

  Short introductory talk given at the CALF/TCC Postgraduate Geometry Day held at Imperial College, London in April 2009.

• Degenerations of surfaces with Kodaira number zero

  Introductory talk given at the CALF seminar held at the University of Oxford in March 2009.

• The construction of ample <2>-polarised K3-fibrations

  Research talk based upon the material in my end-of-first-year report at the University of Oxford (most of which now forms the first chapter of my D.Phil. thesis), given to the Oxford Junior Geometry and Topology group in November 2008. The short talk that I gave at the Young Researchers in Mathematics conference held at the University of Cambridge in April 2009 was also based upon this talk.

• An introduction to the birational classification of surfaces

  Introductory talk given to the Oxford Junior Geometry and Topology group in June 2008.

Videos

A few of my talks have been filmed and made available on the internet. I will post links here to any that I know of, in reverse chronological order.

• Type II degenerations of K3 surfaces, pseudolattices, and mirror symmetry

  Research talk based upon joint work with L. Giovenzana, presented to the Hodge Theory, Mirror Symmetry, and Physics of Calabi-Yau Moduli conference, held at Universität Heidelberg in June 2023.

• Type II degenerations of K3 surfaces, pseudolattices, and mirror symmetry

  Research talk based upon joint work with L. Giovenzana, presented to the Explicit Moduli Problems in Higher Dimensions conference, held at the Banff International Research Station in February/March 2023.

• The mirror Clemens-Schmid sequence

  Research talk based upon joint work with C. F. Doran, presented to the K-theory, algebraic cycles and motivic homotopy theory seminar, part of the thematic programme of the same name held at the Isaac Newton Institute, Cambridge, in July 2022.

• The mirror Clemens-Schmid sequence

  Research talk based upon joint work with C. F. Doran, presented to the 3CinG Annual Congress, held at the University of Warwick in September 2021.

• Mirror symmetry for fibrations and degenerations

  Research talk based upon joint work with C. F. Doran, presented to the ZAG Zoom Algebraic Geometry Online Seminar in September 2020.

• Threefolds fibred by mirror sextic double planes

  Research talk based upon the paper Threefolds fibred by mirror sextic double planes (available in the publications section of this website), recorded from my dining room and presented to the Nottingham Online Algebraic Geometry Seminar in May 2020.

• Mirror symmetry for fibrations and degenerations

  Research talk based upon the paper Mirror symmetry, Tyurin degenerations and fibrations on Calabi-Yau manifolds (available in the publications section of this website), given at the Winter 2016 Workshop on Algebraic Varieties, held at the Fields Institute, Toronto in March 2016.

• Elliptic surfaces and K3-fibred threefolds

  Research talk based upon joint work with C. F. Doran, A. Harder and A. Y. Novoseltsev, given at the Weekend Workshop on Algebraic Varieties, held at the Fields Institute, Toronto in November 2015.

• Towards a compactification of the moduli space of K3 surfaces of degree two

  Research talk based upon joint work with V. Alexeev (available in the publications section of this website), given to the Moduli Spaces and Enumerative Geometry conference, held at IMPA, Rio de Janeiro in April 2015.

• Towards a compactification of the moduli space of K3 surfaces of degree two

  Research talk on the same topic as the one above, given at the Weekend Workshop on Algebraic Varieties, held at the Fields Institute, Toronto in March 2015.

• Moduli of Calabi-Yau threefolds fibred by lattice polarized K3 surfaces

  Research talk based upon the paper Calabi-Yau threefolds fibred by mirror quartic K3 surfaces (available in the publications section of this website) given at the Weekend Workshop on Algebraic Varieties, held at the Fields Institute, Toronto in November 2014.

• Variations of Hodge structure and the period map

  Introductory talk for graduate students given at the Concentrated Graduate Course preceeding the Workshop on Hodge Theory in String Theory, held at the Fields Institute, Toronto in November 2013. Typed notes for this talk are also available in the Notes and Slides section above.

• Moduli of K3 surfaces

  Introductory talk for graduate students given at the Concentrated Graduate Course preceeding the Workshop on Modular Forms around String Theory, held at the Fields Institute, Toronto in September 2013. Typed notes for this talk are also available in the Notes and Slides section above.

• The mathematics of knots (or: what do pure mathematicians do all day?)

  Public lecture given at the LogiCON science convention, held at the University of Alberta in May 2013.