Research interests

My research interest is in number theory. Particularly, I am interested in Erdős-type/classical/elementary and analytic number theory. After all, I was exposed to classical-type number theory, and I immensely enjoyed working on this field (Both of my research projects are classical -- especially my honours thesis work.). I am interested in things like Riemann zeta function and elliptic curves. I did not learn much about the following, but I hope to learn either by myself or in class (even though I don't know what they are): Hardy-Littlewood circle method, sieve methods, Diophantine approximation/analysis.

I am also interested in number-theoretic applications of automata theory (especially $k$-automaticity and $k$-regularity).

Why number theory?

I was rather lucky that I could pinpoints my interest early on (at the beginning of my undergraduate career).
As a regular math contest writer, I did well in number theory questions, whereas I didn't perform as well in geometry questions. That was one of the starting points.

During my second year at Dartmouth College, I had a chance to take a fantastic course on elementary number theory, followed by an undergraduate-level (!) course on elliptic curves. Fascinated by number theory, I again engaged in a number theory project at an REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) hosted by Kansas State University (for results, see Rational linear spaces under Publications), and had a fantastic time there. My undergraduate honours thesis was also on number theory, written under the guidance of the wonderful mentor Prof. Carl Pomerance (for results, see Variant of a theorem of Erdős under Publications).

Besides my natural inclination to piddle around with numbers, the series of events during my undergraduate years (which is somewhat expected, given my love with playing around with numbers) led me to number theory.