Val Soltan Professor Office: Science & Technology Building I, Room 241 Phone: (703) 993-1474 Fax: (703) 993-1491 E-mail: vsoltan@gmu.edu

Degree

• Dr., 1985, Academy of Sciences of Moldova, Generalized Convexity.

Research

Convex and Discrete Geometry:

• convex sets in n dimensions
• special classes of convex sets
• various problems of discrete geometry

Teaching

• This semester courses

Selected Research Articles

• Convex solids with planar midsurfaces, Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 136 (2008), 1071-1081. [pdf]

• Pairs of convex bodies with centrally symmetric intersections of translates, Discrete Comput. Geom. 33 (2005), 605-616. [pdf]

• The characteristic intersection property of line-free Choquet simplies in E^d, Discrete Comput. Geom. 29 (2003), 561-573. [pdf]

• On Grünbaum's conjecture about inner illumination of convex bodies, Discrete Comput. Geom. 22 (1999), 403-410. (with V. Boltyanski and H. Martini) [pdf]

Books and Selected Surveys

• The Erdös-Szekeres problem on points in convex position--a survey, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 37 (2000), 437-458 (with W. Morris). [pdf]

• Combiatorial problems on the illumination of convex bodies, Aequationes Math. 57 (1999), 121-152 (with H. Martini). [pdf]

• Geometric methods and optimization problems, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Combinatorial Optimization Series, 1998, 429 pp. (with V. Boltyanski and H. Martini).

• Introduction to the axiomatic theory of convexity, Stiinta, Chisinau, 1984, 224 pp.

Presentations

• Invited talks at University College London, Rényi Institute of Mathematics, Universities of Technology in Dresden, Chemnitz, and Munich (all in the fall of 2007).

• AMS Meetings (Hoboken-2007, Durham-2006, Lawrenceville-2004, Pittsburgh-2004, San Francisco-2003, Baltimore-2003, Boston-2002).

• Banff workshops: Intuitive geometry (2007), Convex sets and their applications (2006), Convex and abstract polytopes (2005).

• Second Joint Meeting of AMS, DMV, and ÖMG (Mainz/Germany-2005).

Awards

• Various research grants from DAAD, DFG, HHS (all German science foundations), Royal Society of Sweden, Hungarian and Romanian Academies.

• First prize laureate of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova (1980).

Activities

• Member of the editorial board of Beiträge zur Algebra und Geometrie (Contributions to Algebra and Geometry).
• Coorganizer of AMS special sessions: Convex and discrete geometry (Washington, D.C., 2009), Convex sets (Hoboken, NJ, 2007), Recent trends in convex and discrete geometry (San Antonio, TX, 2006), Convexity and combinatorics (Pittsburgh, PA, 2004).

Ph.D. Students

• Sorin Revenko (Convex Geometry, 2002), Ion Ciobanu (Graph Theory, 1995), Anatol Sochirca (Convexity in Graphs, 1995), Anatol Prisacaru (Convexity in Graphs, 1994), Alex Gorpinevich (Computational Geometry, 1993), Mahn Hung Nguyen (Convex Geometry, 1990).