PhD student Jan Gundelach

Jan is a PhD student in “pure mathematics” so called operator algebras.

- Maybe somewhat surprisingly and in contrast to many other branches of sciences there are no experiments to be made, no data to collect and a priori no concrete application in practice that one aims for. What else should be the motivation, then? In that regard, my subject is indeed relatively close to philosophy and is kept alive by the desire to carefully explore a purely theoretical world of logical thoughts and structure, says Jan. 
 
How did you end up in Sweden?

- I had been studying at The University of Göttingen in Germany for five years before I graduated last year in July. Both luck and the coincidence that my current co-supervisor made me aware of this vacant PhD-position in operator algebras caused me to continue by research here in Göteborg since August 2021. I have actually always wanted to go to Sweden since my childhood was largely influenced by Astrid Lindgren’s books and plenty of Swedish child-movie productions. It is such an interesting country and luckily I could already make some progress at learning Swedish. It is much more fun than I expected beforehand. Even better, besides my apparent preference for cities with “Gö-“, I really enjoy the community of PhD students at my department as well as the possibility to continue with my rather exotic sport underwater rugby.
 
What is one of the challenges in your research?

- Besides many others, one of the most obvious challenges in my research is that I quickly reach the boundary of my mathematical knowledge. That is neither uncommon nor a problem per se. But given my curiosity for many adjacent math areas, it is quite hard to resist the temptation to just keep learning all day and lose focus for the own research.

Thank you for giving us a glimpse into your research journey Jan!