Daniel Hernández, born and raised in the Chihuahuan Desert city of El Paso, Texas, is the son of Luis Hernández, a mail handler at the United States Postal Service, and Mercedes Martínez, an elementary school teacher and librarian. Daniel takes pride in being educated in the El Paso public school system. He completed his undergraduate degree at Boston University in 2005, and his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan in 2011, where he received a university-wide teaching award recognizing his commitment to undergraduate mathematics education.

After graduating, Daniel held academic appointments at the University of Minnesota as a Dunham Jackson Assistant Professor and Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow; then at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) in Berkeley, CA as a Research Postdoctoral Fellow; and later at the University of Utah and the University of Michigan as a National Science Foundation (NSF) Postdoctoral Fellow. He is currently an assistant professor at the University of Kansas, and his research is supported by a grant from the NSF.

Daniel considers himself fortunate to have had such a strong network of mentors and supporters throughout his life, and his positive interactions with them have inspired him to do the same for others.

Daniel’s research interests lie in commutative algebra, with an emphasis on the study of polynomials in prime characteristic. He is particularly interested in exploring the connections between invariants of singularities defined by the Frobenius morphism (or p-th power map) in prime characteristic, and invariants of singularities over the complex numbers defined in terms of integration, resolution of singularities, and differential operators.

"Hispanic Heritage Month provides a great opportunity to showcase the contributions of people from traditionally underrepresented groups in the mathematical sciences (including women, people of color, and first and second generation immigrants), and to develop this community by bringing people together. On this note, if you're reading this and interested in algebra, I'd love to hear from you!"

-Daniel Hernández

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