Francesco Nowell

email: nowell at math dot tu-berlin dot de

address: Room MA768, Str. des 17. Juni 136, Berlin 10587

About

I am a PhD student at TU Berlin, working under the joint supervision of Carlos Améndola and Ben Hollering as part of the “Combinatorial Methods for Learning Max-Linear Bayesian Networks” project of the “Combinatorial Synergies” DFG priority programme (SPP 2458).

I obtained my master’s degree in mathematics in 2024, also at TU Berlin. I wrote my thesis on Gröbner walk algorithms (pdf).

My main research interests are in the areas of discrete geometry, combinatorics, and computational algebra. More recent interests include algebraic statistics and the development of mathematical software.

Publications and preprints

• A Stronger Calculus of Intervention for Max-Linear Bayesian Networks (with N.Ay, L. Sierau) - To appear in the proceedings of the 42nd Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI’26)

• A PC Algorithm for Max-Linear Bayesian Networks (with C.Améndola, B.Hollering) - JCGS. arxiv, journal

• Polyhedral Aspects of Maxoids (with T.Boege, B.Hollering, K.Ferry) - To appear in Kybernetika. arxiv

• The GröbnerWalk.jl package for OSCAR (with K.Ferry) - JSAG. arxiv, journal

Software

• This github repo contains code for separation criteria and causal discovery in Max-Linear Bayesian Networks.

• Kamillo Ferry and I are developing the GroebnerWalk julia package, which implements several versions of the Gröbner walk in OSCAR.

Activities

Upcoming

• 10.08-18.09.26 Dive into Research, MPI-CBG Dresden. Teaching Assistant

• 31.08-04.09.26 INABAG’26, Siena (IT).

• 14.-16.09.26 Combinatorial Synergies Annual Conference, Frankfurt.

• 27.-29.01.27 The 8th Graduate Student Meeting in Applied Algebra and Combinatorics (GSMAAC), Leipzig.

• 01.-05.03.27 Algebraic Statistics ’27, Magdeburg.

• 07.-09.04.27 Eurandom Workshop on Probabilistic Graphical Models. Eindhoven (NL)

Past (selected)

• 01-05.06.26 ACA2026, Prishtina (Kosovo). Invited talk

• 16-20.03.26 Polyhedral Geometry for Neural Networks, Nuremberg. Poster presentation

• 12-13.03.26 AlgStat2026, Université Lille (FR). Invited talk (slides)

• 20.08.25 “Institute for Data Science Foundations” research seminar, TU Hamburg. Invited talk (slides)

• 10.07.25 Discrete Geometry III lecture: Applications of Gröbner fans, TU Berlin (slides, notebook)

• 19.06.25 Dies Mathematicus, TU Berlin (slides, notebook)

• 04-07.06.25 WUPES’25, Třešť (CZ)

• 11-13.09.24 Combinatorial Synergies kick-off conference, Osnabrück

• 29.07.24 - 02.08.24 MEGA Leipzig. Software presentation: The GröbnerWalk package (slides, notebook)