Emily Cairncross, PhD
I am a Project Manager at InWave Renewables in Naperville, IL working on solar construction projects throughout Illinois. This website is under construction as well, and largely includes information from my time during my PhD studies.
I recieved my PhD in Mathematical Computer Science (MCS) from University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) in May 2026, and Dhruv Mubayi was my advisor. My dissertation is available as both a PDF or EPUB, and a video of my defense is also available upon request by email to egcairncross@gmail.com.
I worked as a Modeling & Analysis Intern at Carbon Solutions in June-July 2023 and have participated in Data Science bootcamps through both the Internship Network in the Mathematical Sciences and the Erdős Institute.
I co-organized the weekly Graduate Student Combinatorics, Algorithms, and Probability Seminar (GCAPS) with Clayton Mizgerd in 2024-2025, I was a member of Symbols of Inclusion throughout my time at UIC, and I served as co-president of the Math Graduate Student Assocation (MGSA) in 2022-2023.
Teaching
- Spring 2026: MCS 160 Introduction to Computer Science
- Fall 2025: MATH 160 Finite Math for Business
- Spring 2025: MCS 275 Programming Tools and File Management, MCS 360 Intro to Data Structures
- Fall 2024: MATH 160 Finite Math for Business
- Fall 2023: MATH 180 Calculus I
- Fall 2022: MATH 160 Finite Math for Business
- Spring 2022: MATH 110 College Algebra
- Fall 2021: MATH 160 Finite Math for Business
Papers and Preprints
- Inducibility of rainbow graphs, with Clayton Mizgerd, Dhruv Mubayi (27 pages), published in Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society (2025).
- Ordered and colored subgraph density problems, with Dhruv Mubayi (17 pages), published in SIAM Journal on Discrete Mathematics, Vol. 39, No. 1 (2025).
- Nationwide cost and capacity estimates for sedimentary basin geothermal power and implications for geologic CO2 storage, with J. Ogland-Hand, B. Adams, R. Middleton (11 pages), published in Frontiers in Energy Research, Vol. 12 (2024).
- Throttling for standard zero forcing on directed graphs, with J. Carlson, P. Hollander, B. Kitchen, E. Lopez, A. Zhuang (27 pages), published in The Australasian Journal of Combinatorics, Vol. 84, Part 1 (2022).
- Classifying toric surface codes of dimension 7, with S. Ford, E. Garcia, K. Jabbusch (12 pages), published in Involve, Vol. 14, No. 4 (2021).
(Photo credit to Amelia Pompilio.)