Brahadeesh Sankarnarayanan
बृहदीश शंकरनारायणन

Assistant Professor (Grade II), Department of Mathematics, IIT Jodhpur

I work in extremal combinatorics and graph theory. My current interests are in spectral extremal graph theory, intersection graphs of paths, intersecting set systems, graph convexity, and majority coloring games. I have also worked on colorings and list colorings of graphs embedded in surfaces, and on the ranks of structured matrices arising from tournaments. See the Research and Publications pages for details.

I completed my BS–MS dual degree in mathematics at IISER Bhopal in 2017, and defended my PhD in combinatorics at IIT Bombay in 2024 under the supervision of Niranjan Balachandran. I subsequently held positions as an Institute Postdoctoral Fellow at IIT Bombay (until February 2025) and as a Research Associate at IIT Hyderabad with M. Rajesh Kannan (until September 2025), before joining IIT Jodhpur in September 2025.

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• CV (PDF)
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CAT Lab

The CAT Lab is my research group at IIT Jodhpur, focused on extremal and structural problems in combinatorics. See the Research page for current projects.

Lab members

PhD students

• Vishnu — PhD student, enrolled Autumn 2025–26.
• Yash Chawda — PhD student, enrolled Spring 2025–26.

Summer interns

• Vaibhav Suvagiya — SURAJ intern, Summer 2026 (Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, Surat).
• B. James Mejulan — SURAJ intern, Summer 2026 (Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, Surat).

Upcoming events

Upcoming events in combinatorics and related areas. If we're at the same event, please do come say hello!

• July 2026

  The conference Frontiers of Combinatorics (FroCo): Topology, Algebra and Data-Driven Insights will be held at BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus, from 6 to 10 July 2026.

  Yash Chawda will be presenting a contributed talk, On the Majority Game Chromatic Number of Trees, based on our joint work with Saraswati Girish Nanoti (IISc Bangalore), on 6 July 2026.

• August 2026

  The 5th edition of the International Conference on Enumerative Combinatorics and Applications will be held virtually at the University of Haifa, Israel, from 17 to 19 August 2026.

• August 2026

  The MATRIX-MFO Tandem Workshop: Combinatorial Interchange will be held simultaneously at MATRIX in Creswick (Australia) and MFO in Oberwolfach (Germany), from 6 to 11 September 2026. I will be participating on the MATRIX side.

Updates

• June 2026

  Participated in the 11th edition of the Indian School on Logic and Applications (Krea University, Sri City) from 25 to 30 June 2026.

• June 2026

  Delivered a talk titled Teaching logical statements at the undergraduate level: Why one common definition gets in the way at the fifth edition of the Conference on the Practice of Teaching Undergraduate Mathematics (Krea University, Sri City), on 20 June 2026.

• June 2026

  I was a resource person for the Summer School for Women in Mathematics and Statistics (ICTS Bengaluru), from 11 to 19 June 2026.

  I also delivered a popular talk there on 12 June 2026 titled What is Combinatorial Thinking? [YouTube]

• June 2026

  Chaired the 5th lecture in the Prof. R. Balakrishnan Endowment Lecture series, How to obtain the Tutte polynomials of graphs from representation-theoretic methods?, delivered by R. Venkatesh (IISc Bangalore) at the 22nd edition of the Annual Conference of the Academy of Discrete Mathematics and Applications & International Conference on Discrete Mathematics (IIT Madras), on 7 June 2026.

  Also delivered the 15th lecture in the Prof. E. Sampathkumar Memorial Endowment Lecture series, Intersection Graphs and Path Representations, on 10 June 2026, which is celebrated as Graph Theory Day in India in honor of his birth anniversary. The talk was based on joint work with Niranjan Balachandran (IIT Bombay), Shagnik Das (National Taiwan University), and Umesh Shankar (IISc Bangalore).

• June 2026

  My Ph.D. students presented contributed talks at the 22nd edition of the Annual Conference of the Academy of Discrete Mathematics and Applications & International Conference on Discrete Mathematics (IIT Madras), on 7 June 2026. Yash Chawda presented our joint work with Saraswati Girish Nanoti (IISc Bangalore), On the Majority Game Chromatic Number of Trees, and Vishnu spoke on Tight Bounds on the Carathéodory and Exchange Numbers in \(\triangle\)-Convexity.

  I am delighted to add that both talks were shortlisted for the Prof. S. S. Shrikhande Memorial Endowment and Prof. R. Balakrishnan Endowment Best Paper Awards, and Yash Chawda won the Prof. S. S. Shrikhande Memorial Endowment Best Paper Award.

• June 2026

  Presented a contributed talk, Tight Bounds on the Carathéodory and Exchange Numbers for \(\triangle\)-Convexity Spaces, based on work with my student Vishnu, at the fourth edition of the Annual Meru Combinatorics Conference (IIT Bhilai).

• May 2026

  Admitted as an Associate Fellow of the Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications.

• May 2026

  Organized a screening of Secrets of the Surface: The Mathematical Vision of Maryam Mirzakhani, a documentary film by George Csicsery, under the Mathematics Society (IIT Jodhpur).

• May 2026

  Gave an expository talk, A Combinatorial Gem of Maryam Mirzakhani: List Colorings of Planar Graphs, at the One Day Symposium Celebrating Women in Mathematics (IIT Jodhpur).

• May 2026

  Launched the new lab website.

See all updates →

Working with me

I am happy to hear from prospective postdocs, students, and visitors interested in working in combinatorics. The lab does not currently have funded positions, but I am open to hosting candidates with independent funding — in particular, candidates eligible for the National Postdoctoral Fellowship (NPDF). Summer internships in the lab are currently through the SURAJ programme. I do not currently have independent lab funding for internships, but expect to in the future.

I receive a steady volume of generic inquiries that show no engagement with my actual work. To help me distinguish genuine inquiries from these, please include the following in your message:

• A subject line beginning with Postdoc inquiry or Internship inquiry, followed by a one-line description.
• A short paragraph (not just a CV) describing your research interests and recent work.
• A specific paper or research thread of mine that motivated the inquiry, and what you found interesting about it.
• One or two questions or problems — in my area or yours — that you are currently thinking about.