Christian Saemann

Christian Saemann

Professor in Mathematical Physics | Heriot-Watt University

I am a professor in the Department of Mathematics of the School of Mathematical & Computer Sciences at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. My scientific research interests lie mostly in the areas of Mathematical Physics and String Theory.

Extremely Short Bio

I grew up in Fulda, Germany and Thessaloniki, Greece. I obtained a degree in church music (“C-Examen”), before I went to the University of Würzburg, where I studied for three years and received undergraduate degrees in both Mathematics and Physics. I continued my studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where I worked on a thesis on supermathematics resulting in my MA. After completing my PhD on twistor string theory at the Institute for Theoretical Physics of the University of Hannover, I held two postdoctoral positions at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and at the School of Mathematics at Trinity College, Dublin. In 2009, I came to the Department of Mathematics of Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, where I’m currently a professor. 

My Research Interests

My Inaugural Professorial Lecture can be found online. In it I explain my research interests and journey.

Quantum Field Theory

BV Formalism
QFT from Strong Homotopy Lie Algebras
Color-Kinematics Duality
Double Copy

String / M-Theory

Higher Structures in String and M-Theory
M-Brane Models
Double Field Theory
Twistor String Theory
Hanany-Witten Configurations
Matrix Models

Gauge Theory

Categorified Principal Fibre Bundles
Solitons: Instantons, Self-Dual Strings, ...
Twistor Geometry and Penrose-Ward transform
ADHM Constructions and Nahm Transforms

Generalized Notions
of Geometry

Generalized Geometry
Symplectic L∞-Algebroids
Categorified Spaces

Noncommutative Geometry

Geometric/Berezin/Berezin-Toeplitz Quantization
Higher/Categorified Quantization
Fuzzy Geometry and Fuzzy Field Theories
Hopf-Algebra Techniques
Non-Anticommutative Deformations

Emerging Interests

Type Theory
Proof Assistants

Further Interests

Besides math and physics, I’m also very interested in computer science, in particular in the areas of neuroscience, artificial life and artificial intelligence. As a hobby, I also like to write helpful computer programs and some results are found in the software section.

I’m an amateur musician, love to play the organ and the piano (as well as bagpipes and sometimes the tin whistle), sing in choirs (and sometimes conduct them) and wrote some small pieces for organ and piano. The latter can be found under Music.

Home Towns

Somehow, I managed to change my hometowns quite often. I was born in Fulda which I left in 1988 for Thessaloniki in Greece and returned back to Fulda in 1992. For studying I moved to Würzburg in 1997, where I stayed for three years. To receive my first degree, I went to Austin/Texas after which I spent a year in Paris for completing a project and preparing for my PhD, which I then did in Hannover. After living for three and a half years in Dublin, I’m now discovering Edinburgh.

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