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Nesta van der Schaaf.

About. My name is Nesta van der Schaaf (he/him). I'm a postdoctoral researcher at Inria Saclay, working in the QuaCS group of the Laboratoire Méthodes Formelles. I'm broadly interested in mathematical physics. Currently, my main focus is locale and order theory, with an eye on applications to mathematical relativity. I'm also interested in category theory, foundations of (quantum) physics, and diffeology.
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Please feel free to get in touch!
[first].van-der-schaaf@inria.fr

Papers

  1. Ordered Locales, 2024

    Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra, vol. 288(7), pp. 107654; with Chris Heunen.

  2. Axioms for the category of Hilbert spaces and linear contractions, 2024

    Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society, vol. 56(4), pp. 1532-1549; with Chris Heunen and Andre Kornell.

  3. Diffeological Morita Equivalence, 2021

    Cahiers de Topologie et Géométrie Différentielle Catégoriques LXII.2 (2021), pp. 177-238.

Theses

  • Towards Point-Free Spacetimes, 2024

    PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, supervised by Chris Heunen, 10 May 2024.

  • Diffeology, Groupoids & Morita Equivalence, 2020

    MSc thesis, Radboud University, supervised by Klaas Landsman, June 2020. Main result published as [1].

  • Classical and Quantum Particles in Galilean and Poincaré Spacetime, 2017

    BSc thesis, Radboud University, supervised by Klaas Landsman, August 2017.

Talks

Teaching

  • Tutor Adjoint School 2023

    Joint research project on concurrency in monoidal categories for the Adjoint School, part of ACT 2023.

  • Teaching assistant University of Edinburgh, 2021-2022
    • Proofs and Problem Solving
    • Introduction to Linear Algebra
    • Differentiable Manifolds (MSc)
  • Teaching assistant Radboud University, 2018-2020
    • Introduction to Mathematics, Sep.2018-Nov.2018
    • Topology, Jan.2019 - Jun.2019
    • Introduction to Mathematics, Sep.2019-Nov.2019
    • Continuous Matrix Groups, Jan.2020-Jul.2020

Employment

Education

Languages

  • Dutch native
  • English fluent
  • اُردُوelementary

Misc. notes

  • Morita Equivalence and C*-correspondences

    Literature study. Proves the characterisation of Morita equivalence of C*-algebras in terms of invertible bimodules, 2018-2020. [notes]

  • Twisted Group C*-algebras and Projective Unitary Representations

    Final project for a course on C*-algebras. Gives an overview of the characterisation of projective unitary representations of locally compact Hausdorff groups in terms of twisted group C*-algebras, January 2018. [notes]