About Me
Where I'm From and Why I'm Here
I was born and raised in London, United Kingdom. I completed my integrated masters degree in mathematics at the University of Exeter in 2013 and moved to Tucson, Arizona, in 2014 to pursure my doctoral studies at the University of Arizona. Under the supervision of Professor Nicholas M. Ercolani, I completed my PhD with my doctoral dissertation entitled "The Kostant-Toda Lattice, Combinatorial Algorithms and Ultradiscrete Dynamics".
I'm now a visiting assistant professor at the University of Arizona, teaching and continuing my research in the mathematics department.
My Surname
My surname often attracts questions. It is a double-barrelled name comprised of my mother's (Portuguese) maiden name (Ramalheira) and my father's (Chinese) surname (Tsu). As far as I am aware, my mother's side is fully Portuguese, whereas my father's side is predominantly Chinese (with some Portuguese in the mix).The pronunciation of "Ramalheira" is a bit of a mouthful, but a simple phonetic approximation is given by [ham-al-yay-ra], where the r in "ra" is a voiced alveolar tap (imagine rolling the r, but removing the trill).
The pronunciation of "Tsu" is subject to debate, but I was raised pronouncing this like the word "chew".
A Little More About Me
Outside of my research, and before the pandemic, I maintained two long-running hobbies: Pool and Shotokan Karate.Back in England, we play a variant of American pool known as English pool. It's essentially the same (turn based game in which you must pot all of your balls and then win by potting the black/8), but table geometry is different as are our rules. Before moving to the US, I played in my local league, as well as for my previous university teams. Since moving to the US, I have swapped this for American pool.
I trained for seven years in Shotokan karate back in England and took it up again in Arizona for a brief time. Unfortunately, I have lost touch with the sport, but I hope to get back into it soon!
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Last modified on January 12, 2022