Florian Block Student in Mathematics Currently: Department of Mathematics 3060 East Hall 530 Church Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1043 USA Office: 1069 East Hall Phone: +1 734 763 0974 Concerning TopMath: Department of Mathematics Technical University of Munich Boltzmannstr. 3 85748 Garching Germany

Currently I am a Ph.D. Student in Mathematics at the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. TopMath-Fellow at TU Munich. Before that I biked from Germany to Nepal in five months. Before that I worked with Eva-Maria Feichtner at the University of Stuttgart and at the ETH in Zuerich. Before that I finish up with my Diploma at TU Munich after four years working with Juergen Richter-Gebert. From August 2004 to May 2005 I spent two semesters studying at UC Berkeley supervised by Bernd Sturmfels and supported by a DAAD grant.

I am interested in problems that involve (at best) Algebra, Geometry, Combinatorics and Topology, for example, the application of commutative algebra methods to the discrete, combinatorial problem of the computation of tropical polytopes.

• Tropical Convexity via Cellular Resolutions (Erratum, Software by Josephine Yu).
  (with Josephine Yu), Journal of Algebraic Combinatorics 24, 1 (2006), 103--114.

Other stuff

• Ranks and Orbits of 2x2x2 Matrices.
  (with Patrick Schmid, 2005) This was an undergraduate research project about quantum entanglement of 3-qubit systems (e.g. 3 electrons). We found an easy geometric proof that 3 electrons can be entangled in 7 different ways.
• Two languages of Schubert Calculus: Grassmannians and Flag Manifolds.
  (with Nicolas Bray, 2005) A term paper that tries to explain why flag manifolds are a generalization of Grassmannian manifolds using Schubert and Schur polynomials. This is pretty fun stuff.

Research Talks

• Oriented Matroids, Bergman Complexes, and Nested Sets
  • Student Combinatorics Seminar, University of Michigan, USA, January 2007
  • TopMath Seminar, University of Munich, Germany, December 2006
• Tropical Convexity via Cellular Resolutions
  • Discrete Geometry Seminar, Technical University of Berlin, Germany, February 2006
  • Geometry Seminar, University of Stuttgart, Germany, January 2006
  • TopMath, TU Munich, Germany, August 2005
  • Siemens AG, Munich, Germany, July 2005
  • Mittagsseminar (Noon-Seminar), ETH Zürich, Switzerland, July 2005
  • (with Josephine Yu), UC Berkeley Combinatorial Commutative Algebra Course, USA, December 2004
• Second-Order-Approximation in Robust Optimization, Siemens AG, Munich, June 2004

Conferences & Summer Schools

• 2007 Summer School: Applicable Algebraic Geometry, Texas A&M, USA, July 22 - October 10, 2007.
• 2007 Graduate Student Topology Conference, University of Chicago, USA, April 21-22, 2005.
• 2007 Graduate Student Geometry/Topology Conference, Michigan State, USA, March 31, 2007.
• 2005 A Saturday on Discrete Mathematics, University of Darmstadt, Germany, November 26, 2005.
• 2005 Summer School: Formal Models of Psychological Processes, St. Johann, Italy, August 28 - Septemeber 10, 2005
• 2005 Joint Mathematics Meetings, Atlanta, USA, January 5-8, 2005
• 2004 Phylogenetic Combinatorics and Applications, Uppsala, Sweden, July 5-9, 2004
• 2003 Ferienakademie: Mathematical Aspects of Quantum Algorithms and Quantum Information Theory, Sarntal, Italy, September 9 - August 3, 2003

Teaching

• Calculus 2 - Math 116
  (Fall 2007, University of Michigan)
• Calculus 2 - Math 116
  (Winter 2007, University of Michigan)
• Calculus 1 - Math 115
  (Fall 2006, University of Michigan)
• Tutorial for Linear Algebra and Analytic Geometry 2
  (Summer 2004, TU München)
• Tutorial for Linear Algebra and Analytic Geometry 1
  (Winter 2003/04, TU München)

Work Experience

• Internship at Siemens AG, Corporate Technology Division, Müchen, February 16-March 26, 2004
• Internship at BASF AG, Physical Chemistry & Informatics Division, Ludwigshafen, July 16-August 31, 2001

Academic Honors

• Rackham International Fellowship, November 2007
• Diploma with Distinction, November 2005
• TopMath-Fellow at TU Munich, since October 2005 (
• German Academic Exchange Service Fellowship [DAAD], September 2004 - May 2005
• German National Academic Foundation Fellowship [Studienstiftung], March 2004 - December 2005
• e-fellows Fellowship, since November 2003
• Prediploma with Distinction, December 2003
• Distinction for excellent high school performance in Mathematics and Computer Science, June 2001