The cartoon below is by R. Munroe, for more see xkcd.com

About

Hallo! My name is Vanni Noferini, I am originally from Florence, Italy, and I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Sytems Analysis at Aalto University. My research interests are in matrix theory, numerical linear algebra, numerical analysis, complex network analysis, and related topics.

More specifically my interests include nonlinear eigenvalue problems, matrices over elementary divisor domains, matrices over commutative rings, nonlinear root-finding, structured linear algebra problems and their applications, stability of algorithms (or lack thereof), the theory of conditioning and the practice of estimating it, tropical algebra, random matrix theory, and complex network analysis. Before moving to Aalto I got an M.Sc. in Physics at the University of Florence (Italy) under the supervision of Filippo Colomo. I then obtained my Ph.D. in Mathematics at the University of Pisa (Italy), working with Dario Bini and Luca Gemignani. In 2012 I moved from Italy to the United Kingdom, and I have been a postdoctoral Research Associate in the Numerical Analysis Group at the University of Manchester (UK), where I worked with with Nick Higham; it appears that they still like me in Manchester. From 2012 to 2014 I also have organised the Manchester NASC seminars. Between 2015 and 2019 I held my first permanent academic job, being a Lecturer in Mathematics at the Department of Mathematical Sciences within the University of Essex (UK). I got tenured at Essex in 2018.

I moved to Finland in April 2019, to be employed by Aalto as an Associate Professor. I got tenured at Aalto in 2023. Here I am part of the Applied Mathematics group, and I also share several research interests with colleagues in the Algebra and Discrete Mathematics group and in the Stochastics and Statistics group.

I am an editor of The Electronic Journal of Linear Algebra, Linear Algebra and its Appplications, and SIAM Journal on Matrix Analysis and Applications.

My Erdös number is currently equal to 4.

Research

My research page will tell you more about my work, including more details on research interests, publications, preprints, and coauthors.

Teaching

On my teaching page you can find more about my courses and my students.

Current research group

Former group members

Work opportunities

Photos

On the left is a picture of my slightly younger self taken in 2008 in Florence, Italy; on the right, myself as photographed in 2019 in Manchester, UK:

The picture below on the left was taken by my coauthor Alex Townsend in 2014 in Tokyo, Japan. I am the one on the right and am meeting my two coauthors Yuji Nakatsukasa (left) and Pafnuty (centre); the picture on the right shows me (left) in 2017 having Turkish coffee with coauthor Bahar Arslan (right) in Izmir, Turkey:

And here is a photograph of (part of) my research group taken in 2021. From left to right are María del Carmen Quintana Ponce , Giovanni Barbarino and Paul Van Dooren enjoying world-famous Finnish pizzas (and fried crickets).