Jean-François Lafont, professor in the Department of Mathematics, was named interim chair of the department, effective Aug. 1, 2018, through July 31, 2019.

Lafont’s areas of expertise include topology, differential geometry, geometric group theory and K-theory. Some of his recently published research papers include “Vanishing simplicial volume for certain affine manifolds,” “Quasicircle boundaries and exotic almost-isometries” and “Aspherical products which do not support Anosov diffeomorphisms.”

Lafont is a member of the London Mathematical Society Student Texts’ editorial board and was a guest editor for Pure and Applied Mathematics Quarterly, among other editorial credits.

Lafont obtained his doctorate from the University of Michigan in 2002 under the tutelage of mathematician Ralf Spatzier. From 2002 to 2005, Lafont was a postdoctoral researcher at the State University of New York at Binghamton, where he collaborated on research with Thomas Farrell, who has made many contributions in the areas of topology and differential geometry.

“I am honored to serve as interim chair and look forward to a good year for the department,” Lafont said.