Updated: 25/10/26

My Research

I am currently working within the field of generalised symmetries.

Preprints and Publications

I do not currently have any publications or preprints. This will hopefully be ammended soon!

Research-Oriented Notes

Talks and Presentations

• "Dream of Categorification", given at the Durham Mathematical and Theoretical Physics PhD/Postdoc Seminar 15/10/26
  • Category theory, and in particular higher category theory, has become pervasive in mathematical physics in recent years, especially following the introduction of categorical symmetries in the late 2010's by Ji, Wen (arxiv:1912.13492) and others. In this talk I will establish a working (physics-friendly) definition of higher categories, and the related concept of 'categorification' - taking a k-category and turning it into a (k+1)-category. I'll explain why this is a useful thing to do in physical contexts, and give a heuristic description of some of the more common categories that come up. Although the title and subject matter of the talk are quite maths-heavy, I'll start from the very basics - it should be accessible for everyone.
• "Time Reversal as a Generalised Symmetry", given at the Durham Mathematical and Theoretical Physics PhD/Postdoc Seminar 5/3/26
  • It is now standard to discuss (finite) symmetries of a system in terms of C-linear fusion categories, however operations involving time-reversal are manifestly anti-linear. As a result we have to modify our idea of a fusion category, obtaining interesting new results in the classification of TQFTs. This talk is based on ongoing work in collaboration with Mathew Bullimore, Andrea Grigolleto, Luuk Stehouwer and Felix Christensen.
• "Generalised Symmetries and the Operator Content of the Ising CFT", given at the Durham Centre for Particle Theory Friday Seminar 20/2/26
  • Kramers and Wannier in 1941 discovered the existence of an interesting duality in the 2D Ising model. In this talk I will discuss how this duality lacks certain properties we typically expect of a symmetry and how this leads naturally to the concept of a categorical symmetry. Finally,  the representation theory of categorical symmetries suggests the existence of multiplets of operators not usually considered in the literature.