I do research in representation theory of quivers, and its relationship to differential and symplectic topology. The main goal of my research is to find connections between different fields of mathematics and to give conceptual interpretations of these connections. For example, the algebra which categorifies the grassmannian appears in the calculation which proves that Legendrian knots coming from circle bundles over surfaces are not contact isotopic to their mirror images. (joint paper with Dani Alvarez-Gavela.) This also had a surprising application to representation theory: It lead to a counterexample of the phi-dimension conjecture (joint work with former grad student Eric Hanson). I often teach advanced graduate courses in Algebra and Topology. And I like to use each field to understand the other.