Rate My Professor Brian Harbourne

Brian Harbourne serves as the Willa Cather Professor of Mathematics and Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He received his Ph.D. in 1982 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, completing his dissertation entitled "Moduli of Rational Surfaces" under the supervision of Michael Artin. Throughout his career at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Harbourne has made substantial contributions to the field, mentoring nine Ph.D. students, including recent graduates Allison Ganger (2024), Frank Zimmitti (2023), Jake Kettinger (2023), Eric Canton (2018), Solomon Akesseh (2017), Annika Denkert (2013), Michael Janssen (2013), and Katharine Shultis (2015).

Harbourne's research lies in algebraic geometry and commutative algebra. His early studies addressed the geometry of rational surfaces, with subsequent work concentrating on Hilbert functions and resolutions of homogeneous ideals for fat point subschemes in the projective plane. Current interests encompass geproci point sets, unexpected hypersurfaces, the Containment Problem, line arrangements in the plane, and the Bounded Negativity Problem. Notable publications include "An Algorithm for Fat Points on \(\mathbf{P}^2\)" (2000), "Problems and Progress: A Survey on Fat Points in \(\mathbf{P}^2\)" (2001), "Bounded Negativity I" (2009), "Negative Curves on Algebraic Surfaces" (2012), and "Unexpected Hypersurfaces and Their Consequences: A Survey" (2023, with Juan Migliore and Uwe Nagel). He was elected a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society in 2022 and appointed to the Willa Cather Professorship. In recognition of his impact, the Conference on Unexpected and Asymptotic Properties of Algebraic Varieties was held in his honor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in August 2023. Harbourne has presented extensively, including invited talks at the Mathematical Research Institute of Oberwolfach, CIRM Luminy, and various international seminars and conferences.