Alex Manchester (they/them)

Photo by Jeff Fitlow

I have recently started as the Mathematics, Statistics, and Computational Sciences Librarian at Stanford's Robin Li and Melissa Ma Science Library, located in the Sapp Center for Science Teaching and Learning, aka ``Old Chem''. In this job, I order print and electronic materials and manage the university's subcriptions in my subject areas. As a part of this I am the liason between Stanford University Libraries and the Mathematics and Statistics Departments. I also plan to organize Carpentries (and Carpentries-style) workshops on Python, R, and $L A T E X$ /Overleaf.

I don’t claim to be a coder, but I do occasionally write scripts for myself, and upload them to my GitHub in case they are helpful to other librarians hoping to make more use of computer tools.

I graduated with a PhD in Mathematics from Rice University in May 2024. My advisor was Prof. Shelly Harvey, and my mathematical interests are in satellite constructions, knot concordance, and 4-dimensional manifolds, especially in the topological setting. I received a B.S. in Mathematics with Departmental Honors from the University of Chicago in 2019.

Preprints (both submitted for publication):

I have also worked as the Mathematics Collection Development assistant at Rice’s Fondren Library. I assisted with the selection and acquisition of new books, as well as the weeding of of damaged and outdated books in the collection. Additionally, I contributed to our online research guides, particularly the guides on math and AI, and focusing on the history of math and the relationship between AI and accessibility. I also helped to run events introducing students to the university’s Overleaf subscription.

As a librarian, I have been to the 2024 Special Libraries Association (SLA) conference in Kingston, Rhode Island, and the 2025 Joint Mathematics Meetings in Seattle, Washington. And, I plan to go to the 2025 SLA conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

As a graduate student, I co-organized the following conferences:

Nearly Carbon Neutral Geometry and Topology Conference (2023, co-organizer of the concordance section, virtual)
Log cabin conference on concordance and knotted surfaces; Sedona, Arizona (2023)

I also gave invited talks in the following venues:

Low-Dimensional Topology conference at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research; Pune, India (2023)
Low-Dimensional Topology Seminar at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics; Bonn, Germany (2023)
Centre Interuniversitaire de Recherches en Géométrie et Topologie Junior, Université du Québec à Montréal; Canada (2023, virtual)
Joint Mathematics Meeting; Boston, Massachusettes (2023)
Geometric Topology Grad and Postdoc Seminar (2022, virtual)
AMS Fall Western Sectional; Salt Lake City, Utah (2022)