William W. Menasco
PhD
Professor
Research Interests
Low-dimensional topology, hyperbolic geometry and 3-manifolds, knot theory, contact geometry, curve complex and mapping class group.
Education
PhD, University of California, Berkeley
Research Summary
Low-dimensional topology, hyperbolic geometry and 3-manifolds, knot theory, contact geometry, curve complex and mapping class group.
William Menasco's research has touched several areas in low-dimensional topology---alternating links, incompressible surfaces, stabilization of closed braids, knot theory in contact geometry, and hyperbolic 3-manifolds. His current interest is focussed on the area of geometric group theory involving the curve graph in the curve complex and mapping class groups.
Selected Publications
Lafountain, Douglas and Menasco, William W: Braid Foliations in Low-Dimensional Topology AMS Graduate Studies in Mathematics, Volume: 185; 2017; 304 pp.
Lafountain, Douglas and Menasco, William W: "Climbing a Legendrian mountain range without Stabilization", Banach Center Publ. 100 (2014), 179-196.
Birman, Joan S and Menasco, William W: "The curve complex has dead ends", Geometriae Dedicata, Volume 169 (1 issue-April 2014).
Birman, Joan S and Menasco, William W: "Stabilization in the braid groups-I: Markov Theorem without Stabilization", Geometry and Topology 10 (2006), 401-528.
Birman, Joan S and Menasco, William W: Stabilization in the braid groups-II: Transversal simplicity of knots, Geometry and Topology 10 (2006), 1425-1452.
Menasco, William W and Thistlethwaite, Morwen: "The classification of alternating links", Annals of Mathematics 138 (1993), 113-171.
