About Me
I am currently a Master of Mathematics (Computer Science) student at the Faculty of Mathematics, School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo. Before that I completed my undergraduate studies at Addis Ababa Institute of Technology, having the highest GPA from the School of Information Technology and Engineering, and the 2nd highest from the institute. Outside of academia, I like (long distance) biking, bouldering, and watching art films.
Research
Local theories and Partial Quantifier Elimination
For my MMath thesis, I mainly worked with first-order theories called, local theories [1], which have interesting proof theoretic and semantic characterizations that lead to polynomial time decidability of the uniform word problem. I identified a subclass of local theories in which we can efficiently do partial quantifier elimination with some completeness guarantees. Using their proof theoretic characterization, I gave a parametrized polynomial time partial quantifier elimination algorithm and showed how it can be applied to arithmetical theories. The paper resulting from this work has been accepted at the Conference on Automated Deduction (CADE).
Logic and Computability Graduate Seminar
My project for the graduate course Logic and Computability was on relative computability, the arithmetical hierarchy, and Post's theorem relating the Turing degrees with the arithmetical hierarchy. The slides from my seminar .
General (Research) Interests
I am generally excited with topics in (mathematical) logic. My fascination with logic started as a philosophical curiosity about the natures of truth and proof. Which (maybe unsurprisingly) led me to appreciate mathematical rigor and problem solving.
Teaching
I have been a teaching assistant for the following courses, and for some of them I also gave a few lectures.
- Logic and Computation (U of Waterloo)
- Principles of Programming Languages (U of Waterloo)
- Discrete Mathematics (AAIT)
- Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (PACT)
Contact
If you’d like to get in touch, feel free to email me at esgetach@uwaterloo.ca.