Expanding Excellence: New Faces in the Math Department
The Department of Mathematics is pleased to welcome Assistant Professor Dr. Arik Wilbert and Postdoctoral Research Fellow Dr. Andrei Prokhorov as our newest faculty members. We are excited to have them join us and look forward to their contributions in research, teaching, and work with our students and faculty.
Dr. Arik Wilbert
Dr. Arik Wilbert joined Baylor University as an Assistant Professor in August 2026. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Bonn and the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in 2017. Before coming to Baylor, he served as an Assistant Professor at the University of South Alabama, a Limited Term Assistant Professor at the University of Georgia, and a Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
Dr. Wilbert’s research lies at the intersection of representation theory, algebraic geometry, and low-dimensional topology. His work draws on areas of quantum algebra, including quantum groups and Hecke algebras, as well as quantum topology, including quantum knot invariants and category theory. His current research explores connections between geometric representation theory, particularly Springer theory, and topology, with an emphasis on categorification, topological quantum field theory (TQFT), and knot theory.
Dr. Andrei Prokhorov
Dr. Andrei Prokhorov earned his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis in 2019, where his dissertation focused on connection problems for Painlevé tau functions. Before joining Baylor’s Department of Mathematics as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in 2026, he held research and teaching appointments at the University of Michigan, the University of Chicago, and the University of Cincinnati.
Dr. Prokhorov’s research sits at the intersection of analysis, probability, and mathematical physics. His interests include Riemann–Hilbert problems, Painlevé equations, random matrix theory, integrable probability, and asymptotic analysis. More information about his work is available on his website: https://andrei-prokhorov.github.io/.