trevor karn, ph.d.

about

i’m a Visiting Assistant Professor (non-tenure track) at Texas A&M University. i earned my Ph.D. under the supervision of Vic Reiner in 2025 at the University of Minnesota.

my research interests are in algebraic combinatorics and applied topology. here is my cv

this semester i am a coorganizer of the Algebra & Combinatorics Seminar @ Texas A&M. please contact me if you wish to speak!

my pronouns are he/him

publications

Ideals preserved by linear changes of coordinates in positive characteristic (with Bjørn Cattell-Ravdal, Erin Delargy, Akash Ganguly, Sean Guan, Michael Perlman, and Saisudharshan Sivakumar), Communications in Algebra (2025) (arXiv version)

Superspace coinvariants and hyperplane arrangements(with Robert Angarone, Patricia Commins, Satoshi Murai, and Brendon Rhoades), Advances in Mathematics 467 (2025) (arXiv version)

Topological learning in multiclass data sets (with Christopher Grifin and Benjamin Apple), Physical Review E 109 (2024)

Equivariant Kazhdan-Lusztig theory of paving matroids (with George Nasr, Nicholas Proudfoot, and Lorenzo Vecchi), Algebraic Combinatorics Volume 6, issue 3 (2023) (code) (slides) (arXiv version)

Modeling a Hidden Dynamical System Using Energy Minimization and Kernel Density Estimates (with Steven Petrone and Christopher Griffin), Physical Review E 100 (2019)

Stirling numbers in braid matroid Kazhdan–Lusztig polynomials (with Max D. Wakefield), Advances in Applied Mathematics 103 (2019)

preprints

Invariant theory for wreath products acting on superpolynomials (with Vic Reiner)

teaching

i am lecturing math 251: engineering mathematics iii at Texas A&M in spring 2026.

i have lectured the following classes at UMN:

• math 5251: error-correcting codes, finite fields, algebraic curves, spring 2023, spring 2025
• math 1272: calculus ii, fall 2022 (in-person), spring 2024 (online)

i have t.a.’d the following classes at UMN:

• math 2243: linear algebra and differential equations, fall 2020, spring 2021
• math 1272: calculus ii, spring 2020, fall 2021
• math 1271: calculus i, fall 2019

talks

click here to see more about some of my talks.

notes

click here to see some miscellaneous notes.

open source development

i’m a fan of python. in particular, sagemath. since 2020 i have been contributing to sagemath. here are some things i’ve done in sagemath. as of january 27, 2026, i am the 62nd most prolific contributor to sage.

in summer 2021 i participated in the Google Summer of Code with sagemath. i did it again in 2022.

Previous organizing

i have previously helped organize the Minnesota Research Workshop in Algebra and Combinatorics (aka MRWAC, pronouced like the Pokemon). MRWAC is a research workshop to strengthen research connections between UMN graduate students, postdocs and alumni in combinatorics and algebra.

i helped to organize the 2020 UMN student combinatorics seminar. here is the schedule of speakers that year.