Jessica M. McDonald

jessica_mcdonald at sfu dot ca

I am an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow in
the Department of Mathematics at Simon
Fraser University. My sponsor at SFU is
Bojan Mohar.


<-----------"Isn't it obvious?!''

Research

I am a graph theorist. Since arriving at SFU in January 2010 I've worked on a variety of topics, including Kempe equivalence of edge-colourings, Tuza's Conjecture on packing and covering triangles, graph powers, and immersion in graphs and digraphs. The following papers are the results thus far.
  • J. McDonald, B. Mohar, D. Scheide. Kempe-equivalence of edge-colourings in subcubic and subquartic graphs. Accepted by Journal of Graph Theory, March 2011. [arXiv] [Journal]

  • M. Devos, J. McDonald, and D. Scheide. Average degree in graph powers. Accepted by Journal of Graph Theory, November 2011. [arXiv]

  • M. Devos, J. McDonald, B. Mohar and D. Scheide. Immersing complete digraphs. Accepted by European Journal of Combinatorics, January 2012. [arXiv]

  • Z. Devorak, J. Fox, M. Devos, J. McDonald, B. Mohar and D. Scheide. Minimum degree forcing complete graph immersion. Submitted to Combinatorica, January 2011. [arXiv]

  • G. Chapuy, M. DeVos, J. McDonald, B. Mohar and D. Scheide. Packing triangles in weighted graphs. Submitted to SIAM J. of Discrete Math, 2010. [arXiv]
Prior to coming to SFU, I spent Fall 2009 at IPAM at UCLA. While there I worked on multigraph edge-colouring via Tashkinov trees, as I had during my PhD. The following paper came out of the semester.
  • P. Haxell and J. McDonald (2012) Journal of Graph Theory 69(2): 160-168. [Journal]
I completed my PhD in summer 2009. My degree is from the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization at the University of Waterloo, and my advisor there was Penny Haxell. The following three papers contain results from my thesis.
  • J. M. McDonald (2011) On a Theorem of Goldberg. Journal of Graph Theory 68(1): 8-21. [Journal]

  • J. M. McDonald (2010) On multiples of simple graphs and Vizing's Theorem. Discrete Mathematics 310(15-16): 2212-2214. [Journal]

  • J. M. McDonald (2009) Achieving maximum chromatic index in multigraphs. Discrete Mathematics 309(8): 2077-2084. [Journal]
My entire PhD thesis can be found in the University of Waterloo's ethesis database.
  • J. M. McDonald. Multigraphs with High Chromatic Index. PhD Thesis, University of Waterloo, 2009. [ethesis]
I also did an M. Math degree in the C&O Department at Waterloo. My project was about chromatic polynomials and Tutte's Matrix of Chromatic Joins, and my advisor was D.H. Younger.
  • J. M. McDonald. The Chromatic and Dichromatic Join Matrices. M. Math Thesis, University of Waterloo, 2004.
My undergraduate degree is a BScH Math (2003) from Mount Allison University. While at MtA I did summer research with Cathy Baker on Skolem sequences.

Teaching

I am not teaching this semester.