Ph.D. defense


Matteo Calisti today defended his thesis “Ricci curvature bounds and singularities in non-smooth spacetimes” (supervised by Michael Kunzinger, Clemens Sämann and Roland Steinbauer) and earned his Ph.D. with top marks.

2nd Workshop “A new geometry for Einstein’s theory of relativity and beyond”

July 7–11, 2025
Faculty of Mathematics, Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1, 1090 Vienna, 1st floor, HS6

The goal of this workshop is to bring together experts from various fields relevant to our project (Optimal Transport, Lorentzian Geometry, General Relativity, Quantum Gravity, …) and to map out open problems and joint interests with our local group in Vienna. Thus the meeting will be centered along short presentations of open problems and new directions of research, followed by extensive open discussions (30 minutes of lectures plus 60 minutes of discussion). Further joint work in smaller groups is strongly encouraged.

Confirmed participants:
  • Mathias Braun (EFPL, Lausanne)
  • Saul Burgos (University of Malaga)
  • Annegret Burtscher (Radboud University in Nijmegen)
  • Carla Cederbaum (University of Tuebingen)
  • Jose Luis Flores Dorado (University of Malaga)
  • Michal Eckstein (University of Gdańsk)
  • Melanie Graf (University of Hamburg)
  • James Grant (University of Surrey)
  • Stacey Harris (Saint Louis University)
  • John Harvey (University of Cardif)
  • Jonathan Herrera (University of Cordoba)
  • Gemma Hood (University of Leipzig)
  • Christian Ketterer (Maynooth University)
  • Eleni Kontou (King’s College London)
  • Hikaru Kubota (Osaka University)
  • Eric Ling (University of Copenhagen)
  • Marc Mars (University of Salamanca)
  • Robert McCann (University of Toronto)
  • Ettore Minguzzi (University of Pisa)
  • Andrea Mondino (University of Oxford)
  • Argam Ohanyan (University of Toronto, University of Vienna)
  • Shin-ichi Ohta (Osaka University)
  • Julia Osęka University of Gdańsk)
  • Felix Rott (SISSA, Trieste)
  • Jaime Santos Rodríguez (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid)
  • Anna Sancassani (University of Tuebingen)
  • Stefano Saviani (University of Pisa)
  • Christina Sormani (Stony Brook, New York)
  • Elefterios Soultanis (University of Jyväskylä)
  • Sumati Surja (Raman Research Institute, Bangalore)
  • Marco van den Beld Serrano (University of Regensburg)
  • James Vickers, (University of Southampton)
  • Eric Woolgar (University of Alberta)
  • Matteo Zanardini (SISSA, Trieste)
  • Masoumeh Zarei (University of Hamburg)
  • Xingyu Zhu (Michigan State University)
Local participants:
  • Joe Barton
  • Luca Benatti
  • Tobias Beran
  • Samuel Borza
  • Davide Carazzato
  • Mauricio Che
  • Darius Erös
  • Sebastian Gieger
  • Michael Kunzinger
  • Miguel Manzano
  • Karim Mosani
  • Luca Mrini
  • Raquel Perales
  • Miguel Prados Abad
  • Chiara Rigoni
  • Jona Röhrig
  • Marta Sálamo Candal
  • Clemens Sämann
  • Kharanshu Solanki
  • Roland Steinbauer
  • Alessio Vardabasso
  • Inés Vega González

Kick-off Workshop “A new geometry for Einstein’s theory of relativity and beyond”

February 24–28, 2025
Faculty of Mathematics, Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1, 1090 Vienna, 2nd floor, HS11

The goal of this workshop is to bring together experts from various fields relevant to our project (Optimal Transport, Lorentzian Geometry, General Relativity, Quantum Gravity, …) and to map out open problems and joint interests with our local group in Vienna. Thus the meeting will be centered along short presentations of open problems and new directions of research, followed by extensive open discussions (30 minutes of lectures plus 60 minutes of discussion). Further joint work in smaller groups is strongly encouraged.

For more information please see schedule and the book of abstracts.

Confirmed participants:
  • Mathias Braun (EPFL)
  • Fay Dowker (Imperial College London)
  • Felix Finster (University of Regensburg)
  • Lawrence Frolov (Rutgers University)
  • Leonardo Garcia-Heveling (University of Hamburg)
  • Nicola Gigli (SISSA)
  • Melanie Graf (University of Hamburg)
  • James Grant (University of Surrey)
  • John Harvey (University of Cardiff)
  • Christian Ketterer (Maynooth University)
  • Eric Ling (University of Copenhagen)
  • Davide Manini (Technion — Israel Institute of Technology)
  • Olaf Müller (HU Berlin)
  • Lewis Napper (University of Surrey)
  • Jiri Podolsky (Charles University Prague)
  • Felix Rott (SISSA)
  • Sumati Surja (Raman Research Institute, Bangaluru)
  • Shadi Tahvildar-Zadeh (Rutgers University)
  • Simone Vincini (SISSA)
  • Wolfgang Wieland (University of Nuremberg)
  • Matteo Zanardini (SISSA)
Local participants:
  • Joe Barton
  • Luca Benatti
  • Tobias Beran
  • Samuël Borza
  • Matteo Calisti
  • Davide Carazzato
  • Mauricio Che
  • Darius Erös
  • Sebastian Gieger
  • Michael Kunzinger
  • Miguel Manzano
  • Karim Mosani
  • Luca Mrini
  • Lenny Neyt
  • Raquel Perales
  • Miguel Prados Abad
  • Chiara Rigoni
  • Jona Röhrig
  • Marta Sálamo Candal
  • Clemens Sämann
  • Kharanshu Solanki
  • Roland Steinbauer
  • Alessio Vardabasso
  • Inés Vega González
  • Omar Zoghlami

The project has started

The project has started today. Samuel Borza and Karim Mosani have joined the team as PostDocs and Joe Barton and Miguel Prados Abad as Ph.D. students. Also Marta Salamo and Sebastian Gieger have started their Ph.D. studies on topics closely related to the general directions of the project.

Call for praedoc (Ph.D. students) and postdoc positions

Update of 12.07.2024: this call is now closed.

In the research project

A new Geometry for Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and beyond

which has recently received major funding by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) in the framework of its “Emerging Fields” program (see https://ef-geometry.univie.ac.at), we are currently announcing:

Our project has been approved for funding by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF)!

Photo of the project leaders
Photo of the project leaders: from left to right: Clemens Sämann, Raquel Perales, Roland Steinbauer (coordinator), Chiara Rigoni, Michael Kunzinger (copyright: FWF, Klaus Ranger)

We are very glad to announce that our Emerging Field project on A new Geometry for Einstein’s Theory of Relativity & Beyond has been approved for funding by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) with an amount of 7 million Euro!

At this link you can find the press announcement of the FWF.