UAF wins $150,000 NSF grant for Yoo's graph theory project

A three-year, $150,000 federal grant will fund mathematical research and graduate student training at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, under an award the National Science Foundation recorded on Aug. 4. The money, made through NSF's Combinatorics program, supports work on group-labeled graphs: mathematical models of networks in which the connections between nodes carry additional data such as distances, costs, or relationships. The grant runs from Aug. 15, 2026, through July 31, 2029.

The principal investigator is Youngho Yoo of the UAF Department of Mathematics and Statistics, a department that lists combinatorics and graph theory among its current research strengths. According to the award abstract, the project aims to build a structural theory of group-labeled graphs yielding "general tools and efficient algorithms" for problems in graph theory and computer science. The stated work includes the structure of group-labeled graphs excluding a fixed group-labeled graph as a minor, along with the Erdos-Posa property and the half-integral Erdos-Posa property of constrained paths, cycles, and group-labeled minors and subdivisions. It will also investigate group-labeled directed graphs. The abstract commits the project to training graduate students, consistent with the NSF Division of Mathematical Sciences description of its programs, which "supports efforts to improve graduate student research training and professional development in all areas of the mathematical sciences."

An earlier Alaska News article on federal science funding noted that lawmakers at a U.S. House hearing said NSF grant awards were down 55 percent from 2024 levels, a figure Alaska institutions have watched closely given how much University of Alaska research depends on NSF money.