Kenneth Blakey
MIT Room 2-340B
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Email: kblakey [at] mit [dot] edu

Sorry I’m late, I got lost on the path of life.
Kakashi Hatake

I am currently on the academic job market for positions starting Fall 2027.

I am a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in math at MIT, advised by Paul Seidel, supported by an NSF-GRFP. Here is my CV.

Before that, I obtained my Sc.B. in math from Brown University. Chris Woodward introduced me to symplectic geometry, and Thomas Goodwillie was my honors advisor. I was a Goldwater Scholar, Brown Presidential Scholar, and Gates Scholar. I was awarded the David Howell premium for excellence in mathematics.

My research lies at the intersection of symplectic geometry and stable homotopy theory. Classically, pseudo-holomorphic curve invariants (e.g., Gromov-Witten theory and Floer theory) exist over discrete rings; I like to think about if life is more exciting over ring spectra.

Here is my final project for 18.917 Topics in Algebraic Topology. Here is a list of open problems in Floer homotopy theory, kindly scribed by Noah Porcelli.

In Summer 2024 I organized a reading seminar on Floer homotopy. In Summer 2025-2026 I was a co-organizer of Kylerec; in summer 2027, I will be a mentor for the topic “Global Kuranishi charts and Floer homotopy theory”. I was a mentor for GUMMI and PRIMES.

Research

  1. Spectral Viterbo isomorphism: complex-oriented versus framed, arXiv:2608.20289
  2. Quantum de Sitter and analytically-continued Chern-Simons theory, arXiv:2608.07467, with S. Alexander, submitted
  3. A homotopy coherent Pontryagin-Thom isomorphism, arXiv:2607.01482, with L. Keenan, submitted
  4. Bulk-deformations, Floer complex bordism, and Grothendieck-Riemann-Roch, arXiv:2605.06620, with N. Porcelli, submitted
  5. Ample divisor complements, Floer spectra, and relative Gromov-Witten theory, arXiv:2601.08506, submitted
  6. Parameterized Lagrangian Floer homotopy, arXiv:2506.20122, with C.M. Bonciocat, submitted
  7. Floer homotopy theory and degenerate Lagrangian intersections, arXiv:2410.11478, to appear in Journal of Symplectic Geometry
Earlier undergraduate research
  1. Augmentation varieties and disk potentials III, arXiv:2401.13024, with S. Chanda, Y. Sun, C.T. Woodward
  2. Augmentation varieties and disk potentials II, arXiv:2401.13021, with S. Chanda, Y. Sun, C.T. Woodward
  3. Augmentation varieties and disk potentials I, arXiv:2310.17821, with S. Chanda, Y. Sun, C.T. Woodward, submitted
  4. Stable Morse flow trees, arXiv:2207.00653

Other writings (caveat lector)

Talk notes (caveat auditor)

  • Introduction to Lagrangian Floer theory, II: the closed case, Kylerec 2026 (notes)
  • Divisor complements, Floer homotopy, and spectral Gromov-Witten theory, AMS sectional meeting “Sheaf-theoretic and Floer-theoretic approaches to contact and symplectic topology (notes)
  • Applications of Floer homotopy theory to degenerate Lagrangian intersections, Institut Mittag-Leffler (notes, video)
  • Bounding Lagrangian intersections using Floer homotopy theory, symplectic zoominar (slides, video)

Teaching

MIT

  • 2026: 18.03 Differential equations, recitation section
Brown University
  • 2023: MATH 1140 Functions of several variables, undergraduate TA
  • 2022: MATH 1140 Functions of several variables, undergraduate TA
  • 2022: MATH 1410 Topology, undergraduate TA
  • 2021: MATH 1410 Topology, undergraduate TA

2026 Travel

2025 Travel