Su Gao

1992-1998	Department of Mathematics, University of California, Los Angeles, PhD
1989-1992	Chern Institute of Mathematics, Nankai University, M.S.
1985-1989	Department of Mathematics, Peking University, B.S.

2021-present	University Chair Professor, Nankai University
2018-2021	Regents Professor, University of North Texas
2017-2021	Founding Dean, College of Science, University of North Texas
2011-2016	Chair, Department of Mathematics, University of North Texas
2010-2016	Director and Principal Investigator, Research Training Group in Logic and Dynamics
2008-2021	Professor, Department of Mathematics, University of North Texas
2005-2008	Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics, University of North Texas
2001-2005	Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, University of North Texas

University Chair Professor of Nankai University.

1985-1989, Department of Mathematics, Peking University, Bachelor’s; 1989-1992, Chern Institute of Mathematics, Nankai University, Master’s; 1992-1998, Department of Mathematics, University of California, Los Angeles, PhD 1998-2001, California Institute of technology, Bateman Research Instructor and Taussky-Todd Postdoctoral Fellow. 2001-2021, faculty member of University of North Texas, successively serving as Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Professor, Regents Professor, Chair of the Department of Mathematics and Founding Dean of the College of Science.

Su Gao’s research field is mainly mathematical logic and foundations of mathematics, but he has also done research in topological groups, symbolic and topological dynamical systems, and ergodic theory. He has made importantcontributions and solved many open problems in descriptive set theory. His research results have been published in core mathematical journals such as Inventiones Mathematicae, Advances in Mathematics, Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society and Transactions of the American Mathematical Society and top journals of logic such as The Journal of Symbolic Logic, Bulletin of Symbolic Logic, and Annals of Pure and Applied Logic.

He is an editorial board member of Science China Mathematics and two international logic journals.. He is the Managing Editor of Perspectives in Logic, a book series published by the Association for Symbolic Logic. He is currently a member of the Council and the Executive Committee of the Association for Symbolic Logic. He is the Chair of the Committee on Mathematical Logic of the Chinese Mathematical Society.

Mathematical Logic and Foundations of Mathematics, Descriptive Set Theory, Topology and Topological Groups, Dynamical Systems

Effective Descriptive Set Theory

Math 0079 General Topology

National Natural Science Foundation of China 12271263 Title: A Study of the Automorphism Groups of Ultraextensive Spaces Role: PI Award Amount: 470,000 yuan Award Period: 2023-2026

National Natural Science Foundation of China 12250710128 Title: Borel Combinatorics of Countable Group Actions and Applications Role: PI Award Amount: 1,600,000 yuan Award Period: 2023-2024

National Science Foundation DMS-1800323 Title: Descriptive Dynamics and Borel Combinatorics of Group Actions Role: PI Award Amount: $270,000 Award Period: 2018-2021

National Science Foundation DMS-1259803 Title: Fostering Outstanding Cohorts in Undergraduate Science II Role: Co-PI Award Amount: $625,235 Award Period: 2013-2019

National Science Foundation DMS-1201290 Title: Equivalence Relations, Symbolic Dynamics, and Descriptive Set Theory Role: PI Award Amount: $240,026 Award Period: 2012-2016

National Science Foundation DMS-0943870 Title: EMSW-21-RTG: Research Training Group in Logic and Dynamics Role: PI Award Amount: $1,507,481 Award Period: 2010-2016

National Science Foundation DMS-0901853 Title: Invariant Descriptive Set Theory and Its Applications Role: PI Award Amount: $260,417 Award Period: 2009-2013

John Templeton Foundation Title: Classifying Infinity Role: PI Award Amount: $37,873 Award Period: 2008-2010

National Science Foundation DMS-0501039 Title: Orbit Equivalence Relations and Classification Problems Role: PI Award Amount: $91,345 Award Period: 2005-2009

National Science Foundation DMS-0444019 Title: Conference in Mathematical Logic At UNT Role: Co-PI Award Amount: $16,000 Award Period: 2004

National Science Foundation DMS-0100439 Title: Complex Definable Equivalence Relations and Applications Role: PI Award Amount: $67,491 Award Period: 2001-2005

University of North Texas. Faculty Research Grants, 2001-2002, 2002-2003, 2003-2004 and 2005-2006.

University of North Texas. Junior Faculty Summer Research Fellowship, 2001-2002.

Alfred Sloan Foundation. Alfred Sloan Dissertation Fellowship, 1997-1998.

Monograph

S. Gao, Invariant Descriptive Set Theory. Pure and Applied Mathematics, A Series of Monographs and Textbooks, 293. Taylor & Francis Group, 2009.

ISBN-13: 978-1-58488-793-5

Recent Research Papers

  

59.  M. Foreman, S. Gao, A. Hill, C. E. Silva, and B. Weiss, Rank-1 transformations, odometers, and finite factors, Israel Journal of Mathematics 255 (2023), 231-249.

DOI: 10.1007/s11856-022-2451-y

60.  S. Gao, Descriptive combinatorics of countable abelian group actions (in Chinese), Scientia Sinica Mathematica 54 (2024), 575-592. 

DOI: 10.1360/SSM-2023-0112

61. S. Gao, L. Jacoby, W. Johnson, J. Leng, R. Li, C. E. Silva, Y. Wu, On finite spacer rank for words and subshifts, Discrete and Continuous Dynamical Systems 45 (2025), no. 1, 248-285.

DOI: 10.3934/dcds.2024092

62.  S. Gao, R. Li, Subshifts of finite symbolic rank, Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems45 (2025), no. 3, 807-848.

DOI: 10.1017/etds.2024.45

63. S. Gao and X. Ren, The amalgamation property and Urysohn structures in continuous logic, The Journal of Symbolic Logic, published online 4/12/2024.

DOI: 10.1017/jsl.2024.26

64. S. Gao, R. Wang and T. Wang, Continuous edge chromatic numbers of abelian group actions, to appear in Science China Mathematics, published online 1/3/2025.

DOI: 10.1007/s11425-024-2336-x

65. S. Gao and M. Xiao, An order analysis of hyperfinite Borel equivalence relations, The Journal of Symbolic Logic, published online 3/21/2025.

DOI: 10.1017/jsl.2024.82

Older Research Papers

1. S. Gao, The degrees of conditional problems, The Journal of Symbolic Logic 59 (1994), no. 1, 166- 181.

DOI: 10.2307/2275258

2. S. Gao, On automorphism groups of countable structures, The Journal of Symbolic Logic 63 (1998), no. 3, 891-896.

DOI: 10.2307/2586718

3. S. Gao, A dichotomy theorem for mono-unary algebras, Fundamenta Mathematicae 163 (2000), no. 1, 25-37.

DOI:10.4064/fm-163-1-25-37

4. S. Gao, Coding subset shift by subgroup conjugacy, The Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society 32 (2000), no. 6, 653-657.

DOI: 10.1112/S0024609300007463

5. S. Gao, A remark on Martin's conjecture, The Journal of Symbolic Logic 66 (2001), no. 1,401-406.

DOI:10.2307/2694929

6. R. Camerlo and S. Gao, The completeness of the isomorphism relation for countable Boolean algebras, Transactions of the American Mathematical Society 353 (2001), no. 2,491-518.

DOI: 10.1090/S0002-9947-00-02659-3

7. S. Gao, Some dichotomy theorems for isomorphism relations of countable models, The Journal of Symbolic Logic 66 (2001), no. 2, 902-922.

DOI: 10.2307/2695052

8. S. Gao, The action of SL(2,Z) on the subsets of Z2, Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society 129 (2001), no. 5, 1507-1512.

DOI: 10.1090/S0002-9939-00-05721-X

9. S. Gao and P. Gerdes, Computably enumerable equivalence relations, Studia Logica 67(2001), no. 1, 27-59.

DOI:10.1023/A:1010521410739

10. J. Clemens, S. Gao and A. S. Kechris, Polish metric spaces: their classification and isometry groups, The Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 7 (2001), no. 3, 361-375.

DOI: 10.2307/2687754

11. S. Gao, Some applications of the Adams-Kechris technique, Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society 130 (2002), no. 3, 863-874.

DOI: 10.1090/S0002-9939-01-06082-8

12. S. Gao and A. S. Kechris, On the classification of Polish metric spaces up to isometry, Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society 161, no. 766, 2003, viii+78pp.

DOI: 10.1090/memo/0766

13. S. Gao and V. Pestov, On a universality property of some abelian Polish groups, Fundamenta Mathematicae 179 (2003), no. 1, 1-15.
DOI:10.4064/fm179-1-1

14. S. Gao, The homeomorphism problem for countable topological spaces, Topology and Its Applications 139 (2004), no. 1-3, 97-112.

DOI:10.1016/j.topol.2003.09.005

15. G. E. Jan, K.-Y. Chang, S. Gao and I. Parberry, A 4-geometry maze router and its application on multi-terminal nets, ACM Transactions on Design  Automation of Electronic Systems (TODAES) 10 (2005), no. 1, 116-135.

DOI:10.1145/1044111.1044118

16. S. Gao, Unitary group actions and Hilbertian Polish metric spaces, Logic and Its Applications, 53-72. Contemporary Mathematics 380, American Mathematical Society, RI, 2005.

DOI:10.1090/conm/380/07107

17. S. Gao and C. Shao, Random generations of the countable random graph, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 143 (2006), 79-86.

DOI:10.1016/j.apal.2005.12.016

18. L. Ding and S. Gao, Diagonal actions and Borel equivalence relations, The Journal of Symbolic Logic 71 (2006), no. 4, 1081-1096.

DOI: 10.2178/jsl/1164060445

19. S. Gao, Equivalence relations and classical Banach spaces, Mathematical Logic in Asia, 70- 89, Proceedings of the 9th Asian Logic Conference, Novosibirsk, Russia, 16- 19 August 2005, S.S. Goncharov, R Downey, and H. Ono, eds., World Scientific, 2006.

DOI:10.1142/9789812772749_0007

20. L. Ding and S. Gao, On generalizations of Lavrentieff's theorem for Polish group actions, Transactions of the American Mathematical Society 359 (2007), no. 1, 417-426.

DOI: 10.1090/S0002-9947-06-03991-2

21. L. Ding and S. Gao, New metrics on free groups, Topology and Its Applications 154 (2007), 410- 420.

DOI:10.1016/j.topol.2006.05.006

22. S. Gao, A. W. Miller and W. A. R. Weiss, Steinhaus sets and Jackson sets, Advances in Logic, 127-145. Contemporary Mathematics 425, American Mathematical Society,RI, 2007.

DOI:10.1090/conm/425/08122

23. S. Gao, Complexity ranks of countable models, Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 48 (2007), no. 1, 33-48.

DOI:10.1305/ndjfl/1172787543

24. L. Ding and S. Gao, Graev metric groups and Polishable subgroups, Advances in Mathematics 213 (2007), 887-901.

DOI:10.1016/j.aim.2007.01.014

25. S. Gao, S. Jackson, M. Laczkovich and R. D. Mauldin, On the unique representationof families of sets, Transactions of the American Mathematical Society 360 (2008),939- 958.

DOI: 10.1090/S0002-9947-07-04243-2

26. S. Gao and Y. Zhang, Definable sets of generators in maximal cofinitary groups, Advances in Mathematics 217 (2008), 814-832.

DOI:10.1016/j.aim.2007.09.005

27. L. Ding and S. Gao, On separable Banach subspaces, Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications 340 (2008), 746-751.

DOI:10.1016/j.jmaa.2007.08.057

28. S. Gao, S. Jackson and V. Kieftenbeld, A classification of ordinals up to Borel isomorphism, Fundamenta Mathematicae 198 (2008), 61-76.

DOI:10.4064/fm198-1-3

29. S. Gao and M. Oliver, Borel complexity of isomorphism between quotient Boolean algebras, The Journal of Symbolic Logic 73 (2008), no. 4, 1328-1340.

DOI:10.2178/jsl/1230396922

30. L. van den Dries and S. Gao, A Polish group without Lie sums, Abhandlungen aus dem Mathematischen Seminar der Universitaet Hamburg 79 (2009), 135-147.

DOI:10.1007/s12188-009-0019-y

31. S. Gao, S. Jackson and B. Seward, A coloring property for countable groups, Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 147 (2009), no. 3, 579- 592.

DOI:10.1017/S0305004109002655

32. S. Gao and V. Kieftenbeld, Resolvable maps preserve complete metrizability, Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society 138 (2010), no. 6, 2245-2252.

DOI: 10.1090/S0002-9939-10-10246-9

33. S. Gao, S. Jackson and V. Kieftenbeld, The Laczkovich-Komjath property for coanalytic equivalence relations, The Journal of Symbolic Logic 75 (2010), no. 3, 1091- 1101.

DOI: 10.2178/jsl/1278682218

34. S. Gao and C. Shao, Polish ultrametric Urysohn spaces and their isometry groups, Topology and Its Applications 158 (2011), 492-508.

DOI: 10.1016/j.topol.2010.12.003

35. S. Gao, S. Jackson and B. Sari, On the complexity of the uniform homeomorphism relation between separable Banach spaces, Transactions of the American Mathematical Society 363 (2011), no. 6, 3071-3099.

DOI:10.1090/S0002-9947-2011-05075-0

36. S. Gao, Graev ultrametrics and surjectively universal non-Archimedean Polish groups, Topology and Its Applications 160 (2013), 862-870.

DOI:10.1016/j.topol.2013.02.009

37. S. Gao, Faithful representations of Polishable ideals, Proceedings of the 12th Asian Logic Conference, 125-143. World Scientific, NJ, 2013.

DOI:10.1142/9789814449274_0007

38. L. Ding and S. Gao, On the Borelness of the intersection operation, Israel Journal of Mathematics 195 (2013), no. 2, 783-800.

DOI:10.1007/s11856-012-0115-z

39. S. Gao and M. Xuan, On non-Archimedean Polish groups with two-sided invariant metrics, Topology and Its Applications 161 (2014), 343-353.

DOI:10.1016/j.topol.2013.10.034

40. S. Gao and A. Hill, A model for rank one measure preserving transformations, Topology and Its Applications 174 (2014), 25-40.

DOI: 10.1016/j.topol.2014.06.010

41. L. Ding and S. Gao, Is there a Spectral Theory for all bounded linear operators?, Notices of the American Mathematical Society 61 (2014), no. 7, 730-735.

DOI:10.1090/noti1146

42. S. Gao and S. Jackson, Countable abelian group actions and hyperfinite equivalence relations, Inventiones Mathematicae 201 (2015), no. 1, 309-383.

DOI:10.1007/s00222-015-0603-y

43. S. Gao and Z. Yin, A note on equivalence relations ℓp(ℓq), Mathematical Logic Quarterly 61(2015), no. 6, 516-523.

DOI:10.1002/malq.201500051

44. S. Gao and A. Hill, Topological isomorphism for rank-1 systems, Journal d′Analyse Mathematique, 128 (2016), no. 1, 1-49.

DOI:10.1007/s11854-016-0001-4

45. S. Gao and A. Hill, Bounded rank-one transformations, Journal d′Analyse Mathematique,129 (2016), 341-365.

DOI:10.1007/s11854-016-0024-x

46. S. Gao, S. Jackson and B. Seward, Group colorings and Bernoulli subflows, Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society 241, no. 1141, 2016, vi+241pp.

DOI:10.1090/memo/1141

47. L. Ding and S. Gao, Non-archimedean abelian Polish groups and their actions, Advances in Mathematics 307 (2017), 312-343.

DOI:10.1016/j.aim.2016.11.019

48. C. Chang and S. Gao, The complexity of the classification problem of continua, Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society 145 (2017), no. 3, 1329-1342.

DOI: 10.1090/proc/13288

49. S. Gao and C. Ziegler, On polynomial-time relation reducibility, Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 58 (2017), no. 2, 271-285.

DOI:10.1215/00294527-3867118

50. S. Gao, Equivalence relations, classification problems, and descriptive set theory (Chinese), 2015 Mathematics Institute Lectures (2017), 91-109. Chinese Academy of Sciences.

51. S. Gao and C. Ziegler, Topological mixing properties of rank-one subshifts, Transactions of the London Mathematical Society 6 (2019), no. 1, 1-21.

DOI:10.1112/tlm3.12016

52. C. Chang and S. Gao, The complexity of the classification problems of finite-dimensional continua, Topology and Its Applications 267 (2019), 106876.

DOI: 10.1016/j.topol.2019.106876

53. S. Gao and C. Ziegler, Topological factors of rank-one subshifts, Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society, Series B 7 (2020), 118-126.

DOI:10.1090/bproc/55

54. S. Gao and A. Hill, Disjointness between bounded rank-one transformations, Colloquium Mathematicum 164 (2021), no. 1, 91-121.

DOI:10.4064/cm8081-2-2020

55. M. Etedadialiabadi, S. Gao, F. Le Maître, and J. Melleray, Dense locally finite subgroups of automorphism groups of ultraextensive spaces, Advances in Mathematics 391 (2021), 107966.

DOI:10.1016/j.aim.2021.107966

56. M. Etedadialiabadi and S. Gao, On extensions of partial isomorphisms, The Journal of Symbolic Logic 87 (2022), no. 1, 416-435.

DOI: 10.1017/jsl.2020.19

57. S. Gao, S. Jackson, E. Krohne, and B. Seward, Forcing constructions and countable Borel equivalence relations, The Journal of Symbolic Logic 87(2022) ,no.3, 873-893.

DOI: 10.1017/jsl.2022.23

58.  M. Etedadialiabadi and S. Gao, Sarnak's conjecture for a class of rank-one subshifts, Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society, Series B 9 (2022), 460-471.

DOI: 10.1090/bproc/148 

Research Talks

1. Invited talk (online) in the BIRS Workshop on Interactions between Descriptive Set Theory and Smooth Dynamics, March 27-April 1, 2022.

2. Invited talk (online) in the College Colloquium of Chongqing University, April 29, 2022.

3. Invited talk (online) in the Conference about Computing in Topological Structures, Sirius Mathematics Center, Sochi, Russia, June 27-July 1, 2022.

4. Invited talk in the Conference in Mathematical Logic, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, August 8-9, 2022.

5. Invited talk (online) in the WDCM-2022: Fourth Workshop on Digitalization and Computable Models, Novosibirsk and Kazan, Russia, October 24-29, 2022.

6.Invited talk in Dyadisc 6 (Dynamics on the Cantor set and applications), Amiens, France, July 5-7, 2023.

7.Invited talk in Beijing Logic Meeting, Chinese Academy of Sciences, July 24-28, 2023. 

8.Invited talk in the Conference on Descriptive Set Theory & Dynamics, University of Warsaw, Poland, August 21-25, 2023.

9.Invited talk in the Workshop on Mathematical Logic and Philosophy of Mathematics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, September 26-28, 2023.

10.  Invited Departmental Seminars and Colloquium talks in 2023: Wuhan University (February), Wuhan University of Technology (February), Sichuan University (May), Tokyo Model Theory Seminar (June), Yonsei University (June), Beijing Jiaotong University (July).

11. Invited plenary talk in the Fourth International Conference on Topological Algebras and Their Applications, Nankai University, April 3-7, 2024.

12. Invited plenary talk in the First United Academic Meeting of the Mathematical Societies of Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei, Hebei Normal University, Shijiazhuang, April 19-22, 2024.

13. Invited Departmental Seminars and Colloquium talks in 2024: Tsinghua Logic Salon (May), Shaanxi Normal University (May), Northwestern University (China, May), Harbin Institute of Technology (August, December), McGill University (September), Quebec Mathematical Sciences Colloquium (September), Rutgers University (September), University of Wisconsin-Madison (October), University of California Berkeley (October), Peking University (October), Beijing International Mathematical Research Center (November), Sichuan University (November), Southern University of Science and Technology (December), Hunan University (December), Hebei University of Technology (December)

14. Lecturer for the 2024 IMS Summer School in Mathematical Logic, National University of Singapore, July 1-19, 2024.

15. Invited plenary talk in the Forum on the Frontiers and Prospectives in Mathematics, Editorial Board meeting of Science China Mathematics, Enshi, July 20-21, 2024.

16. Invited talk in the Conference on Generalized Computability Theory, CIEM, Castro Urdiales, Cantabria, Spain, August 19-23, 2024.

17. Invited talk in the LPMC conference, Nankai University, November 23, 2024. 

18. Invited Mini-course in the 2024 General Topology Symposium, Ehime University, Ehime, Japan, November 27-28, 2024.

19.  Invited talk in the Conference on Limits on Computability, Definability, Provability--Celebrating the Mathematical and Professional Contributions of Chong Chi Tat, National University of Singapore, January 9-10, 2025.

20. Invited keynote talk in the 11th Indian Conference on Logic and its Applications, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India, February 3-5, 2025.

21. Invited keynote talk in theInternational Conference on Pure Mathematics and its Applications (ICPMA-2025), University of Culcutta, Kolkata, India, February 5-7, 2025.

22. Invited departmental seminars and colloquium talks in 2025: Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University(RKMVERI –Ramekrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute, February)

Service

14. Chair, Committee on mathematical logic, Chinese Mathematical Society,2024-2028.

13. Executive committee member, Association for Symbolic Logic, 2025-present

12. Council member, Association for Symbolic Logic, 2024-2028.

11. Managing Editor, Perspectives in Logic, book series published by the Association for Symbolic Logic, 2024-2028

10.  Associate Editor, Science China Mathematics,2023-present.

9.  Editorial Board member, Mathematical Logic Quarterly, 2012-2025.

8.  Editor, Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 2011-present.

7.  Editorial Board member, Perspectives in Logic, book series published by the Association for Symbolic Logic, 2017-2023.

6.  Editor: Chinese Encyclopedia of Mathematics.

5.  Editor: Chinese Dictionary of Mathematics.

4.  Guest Editor,Mathematical Logic, Algorithms and Applications, A special issue of Mathematics (ISSN 2227-7390), deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2023.

3.  A. Blass, S. Gao and Y. Zhang, eds., Special issue: Methods of Logic in Mathematics. Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 158 (2009), no. 3. 

2. S. Gao, S. Jackson and Y. Zhang, eds., Advances in Logic. The North Texas Logic Conference, October 8-10, 2004, University of North Texas, Denton. Contemporary Mathematics 425, American Mathematical Society, RI, 2007. 

1.  S. Gao, A. M. Vershik and Y. Zhang, eds., Special issue: International Meeting on Logic, Algebra and Geometry. Held in St. Petersburg, June 1-7, 2004. Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 143 (2006), no. 1-3.