Professor Tyler Kelly PhD

• PhD in Mathematics at University of Pennsylvania, 2014
• MA in Mathematics at University of Georgia, 2009
• BS in Mathematics at University of Georgia, 2009
• AB in Romance Languages at University of Georgia, 2009

Originally from the United States, Tyler Kelly graduated with two Bachelor’s degrees and a Master’s degree from the University of Georgia in 2009. Afterwards, Professor Kelly moved to Philadelphia and obtained a PhD in 2014 under the supervision of Prof. Ron Donagi at the University of Pennsylvania.

At the end of the PhD, Kelly won a National Science Foundation (NSF) Postdoctoral Fellowship, which led to the University of Cambridge where Kelly spent four years, first as an NSF Fellow but then also as an EPSRC Research Fellow. While at Cambridge, Kelly was a research fellow at Homerton College.

Kelly joined Birmingham in September 2018 as part of the new Geometry and Mathematical Physics group, became a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow in 2020, and was promoted to Professor of Pure Mathematics in 2023.

Professor Kelly is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. At the University of Pennsylvania, they earned a graduate certificate in teaching in higher education while winning the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching by a Graduate Student.

Professor Kelly currently supervises two PhD students. Typically, they supervise students in algebraic geometry on problems that originate from mirror symmetry or mathematical physics.

Research Themes

• Algebraic Geometry
• Mirror Symmetry
• Landau-Ginzburg Models
• Toric Geometry
• Zeta Functions
• Calabi-Yau varieties

Research Activity

Professor Kelly’s research surrounds mirror symmetry. Roughly speaking, mirror symmetry allows one to encapsulate the geometry of a symplectic manifold in the algebro-geometric information of its so-called mirror algebro-geometric object. Prof. Kelly’s research primarily is focused mirror symmetry's interactions with singularity theory and noncommutative geometry.  Prof. Kelly studies this in multiple ways, each having various other implications.

Kelly's main interests surround Landau-Ginzburg models, an object with origins from string theory whose applications are just now becoming fully realized mathematically. Roughly, a Landau-Ginzburg model is a triplet of data (X, G, W) where X is a quasi-affine variety, G a group acting on X and W a G-invariant complex-valued algebraic function on X. The singularity theory of the quotient of X by G and the critical locus of W are used to encode geometry. They make many problems in algebraic geometry more tractable. Prof Kelly analyzes their enumerative and derived properties. Prof Kelly also has broader interest across algebraic geometry including Calabi-Yau varieties and toric varieties.

Co-chair for the organisation LGBTQ+ STEM

Advisory Board Member for the Academy for the Mathematical Sciences (Equality Diversity and Inclusion Workstream)

Member of the London Mathematical Society's Women and Diversity in Mathematics Committee

Local Organisation Lead for the 2020 LGBT STEMinar, held at the University of Birmingham

Staff Advisor for oSTEM (out in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) University of Birmingham Student Chapter