Dr Mark Lawson

• Course director for the joint degrees in mathematics and computer science
• Member of the University Disciplinary Committee
• Member of the SMSTC algebra team

My research interests centre on semigroup theory, automata theory and category theory. I am currently working on the connections between partial symmetries, topological groupoids and C*-algebras. These diverse topics are linked by a non-commutative generalization of Stone duality.

• The Morita theory for semigroups with local units, J. Pure Appl. Algebra 215 (2011), 455-470.
• A non-commutative generalization of Stone duality, J. Austral. Math. Soc. 88 (2010), 385-404.
• A correspondence between balanced varieties and inverse monoids, Inter. J. Alg. and Computation 16 (2006), 887—924.
• Ordered groupoids and etendues, with B. Steinberg Cahiers de topologie et geometrie differentielle categoriques XLV (2004), 82--108.
• Universal groups for point-sets and tilings, with J. Kellendonk J. Algebra 276 (2004), 462—492.

I was an undergraduate and graduate student at York University with a one year spell at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge where I read the Part III in mathematics. After my DPhil, I spent three years at Lincoln College Oxford as a JRF followed by a year at the T.H. Darmstadt supported by the Royal Society. I was subsequently lecturer and then senior lecturer in mathematics at CPGC before moving to Heriot-Watt in 2004.

I am one of the algebra editors for the Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society and one of the communicating editors for Semigroup Forum.