a picture of me, smiling

Will J. Turner

Research

I am a research assistant and doctoral candidate at TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Sachsen. A link to my group's webpage can be found here. I am in the structural combinatorics team headed by Prof. Johannes Carmesin.

Current research interests

Topological combinatorics. Planar graph theory and higher-dimensional analogues.
Connectivity theory and graph decomposition. Finding and using canonical ways to break down combinatorial objects.
Matroids. Matroid representability.
I often combine the above with complexity theory and sometimes category theory.

Ongoing collaborations

With Prof. Johannes Carmesin developing a graph minor theory for temporal sequences.
With Prof. Benjamin Merlin Bumpus on an algebraic dual to tree-width.
With Dr Matthew Kroeker, trying to simultaneously represent temporal matroids.

Papers

Hardness of planarity for weak temporal sequences of 2-connected graphs Johannes Carmesin, Will J. Turner
preprint December 2025 Elsevier - TCS Volume 1070, April 2026 arxiv
A graph minors approach to temporal sequences Johannes Carmesin, Will J. Turner
preprint April 2025 to appear: STOC 2026 arxiv
Pushing tree decompositions along graph homomorphisms Benjamin Merlin Bumpus, James Fairbanks, Will J. Turner
preprint August 2024 arxiv
Towards a Stallings-type theorem for finite groups Johannes Carmesin, Jan Kurkofka, George Kontogeorgiou, Will J. Turner
preprint March 2024 arxiv

Upcoming

Temporal sequences
STOC2026
22nd June 2026

Recent events

Resarch visit
Universidad São Paulo
24th March - 27th April 2026
ProofBench Initiative
TU Freiberg
September 2025

Selected talks

Temporal sequences
Seminar - HPI Potsdam
14th May 2026
Co-decompositions: structure and algorithms
Comb0 Seminar - Universidad São Paulo
24th April 2026
Temporal sequences
Research Seminar DMA - TU Freiberg
12th Nov 2025
Temporal sequences
Bertinoro Workshop on Algorithms and Graphs
29th Oct 2025
Temporal sequences
SEG workshop Chemnitz
30th June 2025
Invited Minisymposium: Matroid Theory
CanaDAM - U Ottowa
22nd May 2025
A graph minors approach to temporal sequences
Forschungsseminare - U Hamburg
29th Apr 2025
Coloured matroid reconstruction: part 2
Research Seminar DMA - TU Freiberg
06th Nov 2024
Coloured matroid reconstruction: part 1
Research Seminar DMA - TU Freiberg
30th Oct 2024
Towards a Stallings-type theorem for finite groups: part 2
Research Seminar DMA - TU Freiberg
03rd Jul 2024
Towards a Stallings-type theorem for finite groups: part 1
Research Seminar DMA - TU Freiberg
22nd May 2024
A forbidden substructure characterisation of temporal planarity
Combinatorics Seminar - University of Warwick
23nd Feb 2024
Forbidden Spiders: a forbidden substructure characterisation of temporal planarity
Combinatorics Seminar - University of Birmingham
12th Oct 2023
Local separators of Cayley graphs
QTMC Conference - Queen Mary University London
07th Jul 2023
What on earth is a matroid: A journey through topological graph theory to Rota's conjecture
Pure Détour - University of Birmingham
21st Apr 2023
Local separators of Cayley graphs
Postgraduate Combinatorics Conference - University of Birmingham
29th Mar 2023

Demonstrating

Lineare Algebra Übungsklasse
TU Freiberg
Winter 2025 - Summer 2026
Komplexitätstheorie Übungsklasse
TU Freiberg
Summer 2025
Algorithmic Graph Theory 2 exercise classes
TU Freiberg
Summer 2025
Algorithmic Geometry exercise classes
TU Freiberg
Winter 2024
Algorithmics exercise classes
TU Freiberg
Summer 2024
a painting of a forest pool