Chris Kapulkin

	Associate Professor	Email: kkapulki 'at' uwo.ca
	Department of Mathematics
	University of Western Ontario	Middlesex College 255C

Research

Research areas

Homotopy Theory
(Higher) Category Theory
Combinatorics / Graph Theory
Formalization of Mathematics / Homotopy Type Theory
Cryptography

Publications

Notes, videos, etc.

Supervision

Current students and postdocs

Diego Manco Berrio, postdoc, 2024-present.
Benjamin Connors, PhD student, 2023-present.
Nathan Kershaw, PhD student (Direct Entry), 2023-present.
Yufeng Li, PhD student, University of Cambridge (co-supervisor, M. Fiore supervisor), 2023-present.
Maximilian Petrowitsch, PhD student (Philosophy), 2022-present.
Zack Dooley, PhD student, 2024-present. Previously MSc student, 2023-24.
Benni Ngo, PhD student, 2025-present.
Adrien Grenier, Western USRI in Summer 2025 + PhD student (Direct Entry), 2025-present.
Jacob Ender, MSc student, 2025-present.
Kyle Koyanagi, MSc student (co-supervisor, D. Jeffrey principal supervisor), 2025-present.
Jeffrey Li, MSc student, 2025-present.

Supervision information

Western Cryptography Research Group

Teaching

Academic year 2025-26

Mathematics 9152B: Algebraic Topology II, Winter 2026.
Mathematics 3152B: Combinatorial Mathematics, Winter 2026.

Teaching information

Recommendation letters

Activities

Ongoing

Associate Editor of the Canadian Journal of Mathematics and the Canadian Mathematical Bulletin.
Member of the Scientific Advisory Board at the Banff International Research Station.
Member of the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Advisory Board at the Banff International Research Station.
Member of the CMS Equity, Diversity, and Inclusiveness Committee.
Faculty sponsor of the student chapter of Association for Women in Mathematics at Western University.
Co-founder and organizer (j/w C. Angiuli, D. Christensen, and E. Riehl) of the HoTT Electronic Seminar Talks.
Supervisor (j/w D. Carranza) in the 2025 Fields Undergraduate Summer Research Program (project 09: Formal verification of topological combinatorics), Fields Institute's outpost at Western University, June 15-August 15, 2025.
Organizer (j/w A. Medina-Mardones) of the Geometry/Topology Seminar at Western.
Co-founder and faculty advisor to the organizers (M. James, M. Martin, N. Pagliaroli) of the Directed Reading Program at Western.

Upcoming

Lead organizer (j/w A. Dochtermann and A. Rieser) of the Special Session on Discrete Homotopy Theory during the Mathematical Congress of the Americas 2025, Miami, Fla., July 21-25, 2025.
Participant of the Workshop on Category Theory, Combinatorics, and Machine Learning at the Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics, Brown University, Providence, R.I., September 15-19, 2025.
Florence Bucke Prize Lecture 2024, University of Western Ontario, TBA.
Coxeter-James Prize Speaker at the CMS Winter Meeting 2025, Toronto, Ont., December 5-8, 2025.
Lead organizer of the Conference on Homotopy Theory, K-theory, and Topological Data Analysis (in honor of Rick Jardine), London, Ont., June 8-12, 2026.

Selected past activities

Recipient of the Coxeter James Prize, Canadian Mathematical Society, 2025.
Associate Chair (Graduate), Department of Mathematics, Univeristy of Western Ontario, 2019-25.
Recipient of the Florence Bucke Science Prize, University of Western Ontario, 2024.
Organizer (j/w B. Benedetti, A. Dochtermann, G. Paolini, and A. Rieser) of the Special Session on Discrete and Combinatorial Homotopy, Theory and Practice during the 2nd Joint Meeting of the Unione Matematica Italiana and the American Mathematical Society, July 23-26, 2024.
Lead organizer (j/w A. Dochtermann and A. Rieser) of the Special Session on Discrete Homotopy Theory during the Joint Mathematics Meetings 2024, San Francisco, Calif., January 3-6, 2024.
Lead organizer (j/w J. Beardsley, T. Brazelton, and D. Dugger) of the Special Session on Homotopy Theory during the Joint Mathematics Meetings 2024, San Francisco, Calif., January 3-6, 2024.
Organizer (j/w M. Frankland) of the Special Session on Homotopy Theory during the CMS Winter Meeting 2023, Montreal, Que., December 1-4, 2023.
Distiguished Research Professor, Faculty of Science, University of Western Ontario, 2022-23.
Research member of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, Berkeley, Calif., 2022-23.
Organizer (j/w C. Angiuli, D. Christensen, M. Hötzel Escardó, D. Licata, E. Riehl, and E. Rijke) of the HoTTEST Summer School 2022, online event, July-August 2022.
Organizer (j/w B. Ahrens, E. Cavallo, and A. Petkovic) of the HoTT/UF Workshop 2022, Haifa, Israel, July 31-August 1, 2022.
Organizer (j/w B. Ahrens) of the HoTT/UF Workshop 2021, The Internet @ Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 17-18, 2021.
Organizer (j/w B. Ahrens) of the HoTT/UF Workshop 2020, Paris (France) The Internet, July 5-7, 2020.
Organizer (j/w D. Christensen) of the HoTTEST Conference of 2020, only online, June 15-19, 2020.
Research Member in the program Higher Categories and Categorification at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, Berkeley, Spring 2020. Subsequently, participant of the MSRI Higher Categories and Categorification Reunion Event, MSRI/Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, May 30-June 24, 2022.
Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (project: Homotopy Type Theory and Univalent Foundations), Fall 2018.
Lead organizer of the conference From the Fundamental Lemma to Discrete Geometry, to Formal Verification (in honor of Thomas C. Hales on the occasion of his 60th birthday), University of Pittsburgh, June 18-22, 2018.
Organizer of the inaugural Midwest HoTT Seminar, May 26-27, 2018.
Organizer of Workshop and School on Univalent Mathematics, Birmingham, UK, December 11-15, 2017.
Program Committee member of the HoTT/UF Workshop 2017, 2018, 2019.
Participant of the Big Proof program at Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Summer 2017.
Lead organizer of the AMS Math Research Communities Workshop on Homotopy Type Theory, June 4-10, 2017.
Receipient of the Interdisciplinary Postdoctoral Research Funding (C$20,000) for the project Cryptographic Multilinear Maps, 2016-17.
Organizer of the Workshop on Homotopy Type Theory and Univalent Foundations, Fields Institute, May 16-20, 2016.
Receipient of the Thomas C. Hales Distinguished Research Award for the best dissertation written by a graduate student in mathematics at the University of Pittsburgh, 2014.
Receipient of the Andrew Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh, 2013-14.
Visiting student at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, 2012-13.