Prof. Peter Stevenhagen’s Visit to the Pakistan Campus

The start of the semester at the International Mathematics Master (IMM) Pakistan Campus was marked by a meaningful event: a visit from Prof. Peter Stevenhagen, President of IMM and professor at Leiden University. His presence, he believed, would set the right tone and remind students that IMM is a real community built on shared learning and collaboration.

Over the course of eight days of lecturing

Prof. Stevenhagen delivered the Advanced Algebra course. Teaching for two hours each day along with tutorial sessions and lively discussions with students. 

The course introduced students to the foundations of modern algebra ; a field that studies algebraic structures such as groups, rings, fields, modules and vector spaces. These structures form the backbone of much of modern mathematics and understanding them requires both clarity and creativity.

Lectures took place in a small classroom equipped with a chalkboard

Creating an intimate and interactive atmosphere. For many students, this was a refreshing change from the highly digital and structured environments typical of undergraduate studies.  Prof. Stevenhagen encouraged them to move beyond memorization and see mathematics as a language to be developed, something that requires curiosity, playfulness and time.

His playful and exploratory approach resonated with the diverse group of students at the Campus. While the material was advanced the classroom atmosphere remained energetic and open. Some students admitted they were initially intimidated by the pace and density of the course, but Prof. Stevenhagen reassured them that this was part of the process. His goal was to restore that sense of motivation and discovery, helping students appreciate the reasoning behind mathematical structures instead of treating them as static facts. 

Mathematics takes time and persistence and gradual understanding is part of the fundamental process of the field.

He personally noted with the students that teaching at IMM is more intense than at Leiden, this being a cause of the densely packed schedule and lecturing days limit. He also highlighted the IMM thesis structure, which pairs each student with both local and international supervisors, ensuring that their research is shaped by a global perspective. 

The visit coincided with a lively start to the semester, filled with student activities and events, which gave the campus an especially vibrant energy. The cohort’s diversity stood out  students from different countries, backgrounds and mathematical traditions all working side by side. 

Outside the classroom, Prof. Stevenhagen delivered an Escher Lecture. In his talk “Escher and Droste in Lahore”, Prof. Stevenhagen unraveled the mystery of the Droste effect, infinite recursion hidden within Escher’s Print Gallery, while connecting mathematics to art in a way that was as visual as it was profound. He also shared insights about the IMM program, which continues to bring leading international faculty to Pakistan.

Professor Stevenhagen spent a day visiting another university in the region, discussing future academic collaborations and exploring how local institutions could further connect with the IMM network. You can check the video here

About the Advanced Algebra Course

The aim of this course is to introduce students to the foundations of modern algebra. Modern algebra is the study of algebraic structures, which are constructed by endowing sets with specific operations acting on their elements. Examples of such structures are groups, rings, fields and vector spaces. To study these structures it’s particularly instructive to look at homomorphisms between such structures, which are maps that preserve the algebraic structure of the objects.In the course we cover groups, group actions, rings, modules, fields and Galois theory.

[Lecture notes and materials can be found at Leiden University Algebra Group.] 

About Prof. Peter Stevenhagen

Prof. Peter Stevenhagen is a professor of mathematics at Leiden University and the President of the International Mathematics Master (IMM). You can check his CV right here