Michael Cerchia picture of me

Email: michael.cerchia@maine.edu
Office: 236 Neville Hall
Department of Mathematics
The University of Maine

I am a (postdoctoral) Assistant Professor at the University of Maine. In August 2024, I earned my PhD in mathematics at Emory University, where I worked with David Zureick-Brown.
I am broadly interested in algebraic geometry and number theory, with specific interests in the arithmetic of moduli spaces, stacks, and modular curves.
My CV.


Papers

Modular curves of prime-power level with infinitely many quadratic points arxiv, with Rakvi, 2025 (submitted)
Weil polynomials of abelian varieties over finite fields arxiv, with Zeyu Liu, Diana Mocanu, Haodong Yao, Jing Ye, 2025
Section rings of Q-divisors on genus 1 curves arxiv, with Jesse Franklin and Evan O'Dorney, 2023 (submitted)
Uniform bounds on the image of the arboreal Galois representations attached to non-CM elliptic curves arxiv, with Jeremy Rouse, Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society, 2021

Teaching

In Spring 2026, I am teaching MAT 261 (Introduction to Abstract Math). Students can find all course materials on Brightspace