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Nelson Niu

@nelsonniu.bsky.social
87 followers 123 following 56 posts

he/they • math phd student at uw • uaw4121 unit chair • actor • uw ms ’23 • mit sb ’21 • nelsonniu.com

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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
god i hate the blue angels. one thing i will not miss about seattle
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
life hack for an american traveling in europe: treating everything like usd prices but pretend you’re tipping
avocado on english muffinskhinkali: georgian soup dumplings. the “tails” are intentionalcool towercobblestone road that i made my friend geoguess
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
Um, actually, MIT stopped using the word “freshmen” on anything official around 2019, so this banner would say “first-year”
[screenshot of Spider-Man: Brand New Day script]

He puts the letter down, looks at his phone. A video of Ned in front of a big banner: "Welcome, Freshmen Engineers!"

NED (ON VIDEO)
First day at MIT! Wooohoo!
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
when your math department is so broke it resorts to selling summer research projects to undergrads for $2500 apiece
Program Structure
Eligibility: Open to current UW undergraduate students from all disciplines with an interest in mathematics.  Students graduating spring 2026 are eligible.
Enrollment Status: Participation in PRIME is not associated with UW course enrollment. Students will not earn academic credit and will not be considered enrolled during the program.
Mentorship: Students meet one or more times a week with a faculty mentor, either remotely or in person.
Showcase: At the end of the session, students present their work at a public research showcase.
Cost: $2,500
Administration: The program is independently operated by the Department of Mathematics.
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Your City @yourcityseattle.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
👏 CHECK 👏 YOUR 👏 BALLOT 👏
A Katie Wilson campaign graphic that says as our volunteers work to cure ballots all weekend... make sure yours was counted! use the link in BIO and let us know with a gif when confirmed in the comments
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
Order my book today! a.co/d/7XOhaa6
[Book cover]

London Mathematical Society Lecture Note Series 498

Polynomial Functors
A Mathematical Theory of Interaction

Nelson Niu and David I. Spivak

London Mathematical Society
Est. 1865

Cambridge
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
Registration for the SUBgroups program for first-year math grad students is now open! Find out more and register here: gradsubgroups.org Please share with any first-year math grad students you know who are looking for some regular peer support!
gradsubgroups.org
SUBgroups
Online peer groups for first-year math graduate students.
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
In NYC, @uaw.org was the first union to endorse @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social for Mayor, leading to his primary victory last month. Here in Seattle, we at @uaw.org were the first union to endorse @wilsonforseattle.bsky.social for Mayor, leading to her primary victory last night. We pick winners ✊
out celebrating katie wilson’s win!!
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Qagggy! @qagggy.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
‼️‼️‼️
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The Urbanist @theurbanist.org · 06/08/2025
The mood is jubilant at Katie Wilson's primary election night party. Wilson is leading Harrell 46.2% to 44.8% in early results.
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Álvaro Lozano-Robledo @mathandcobb.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
Scientific American thinks mathematicians are being quiet about the devastating NSF funds to our field. We need to be LOUDER. www.facebook.com/share/r/1J3Z...
facebook.com
Redirecting...
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 13/06/2025
I love when I tell people I study category theory and their first reaction is “oh, no!”
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Daniel Litt @littmath.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
Incredibly bad (changes to N.S.F. funding for math):
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UAW Region 6 @uawregion6.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
Today was a big win for workers in Washington state as unemployment insurance for striking workers was signed into law! UAW members joined @wslc.bsky.social, fellow union members from across the state, and bill sponsor (and former @uaw4121.bsky.social member) Sen. Riccelli for the signing.
Dozens of Washington union members gathered in a conference room for the bill signingThree UAW members with Senator Riccelli
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UAW Local 4121 @uaw4121.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
UW changed its layoff policy without bargaining- risking the job security of 1000s of UW research workers 👎 1,200+ have signed the open letter demanding they reverse this policy. Join us next Monday @ noon in UW's Red Square to deliver the letter and tell admin to follow our contracts! 💥💥💥
Temporary letter layoff delivery. 12 to 12:30PM PST. Red Square, Monday May 19. For more information, visit: www.uaw4121.org/2025-layoff-policies/
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
I’m in this article along with other @uaw4121.bsky.social members to explain what’s happening to grad student researchers in the US right now. It’s not looking great for us, and it’s looking even worse for America.
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
It sure is encouraging when the Trump administration personally praises the way my university deployed riot police on a student protest 🫠 Same cops that our university called on me and my union siblings during our peaceful labor action last year, by the way!
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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 05/05/2025
A new proof represents the culmination of a 65-year-old story about anomalous shapes in special dimensions. @ericaklarreich.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/dimension-12...
quantamagazine.org
Dimension 126 Contains Strangely Twisted Shapes, Mathematicians Prove | Quanta Magazine
A new proof represents the culmination of a 65-year-old story about anomalous shapes in special dimensions.
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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 25/04/2025
PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081
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Liz Neeley @lizneeley.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
URGENT ACTION FOR NSF GRANTEES. For current & recent (since 2020) awards, archive your award history this afternoon/tonight. Screenshot/download/print your work in research.gov & alert your partners. We have credible threats to integrity of awards tracking systems (via @jeremymberg.bsky.social)
research.gov
Research.gov - Homepage
Research.gov is a partnership of Federal, research-oriented grant making agencies with a shared vision of increasing customer service for applicants while streamlining and standardizing processes amon...
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
sometimes i see blackboard bold out in the wild and remember that mathematicians do not have a monopoly on fonts
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
okay bear with me here but if you count (a) live staged play readings, (b) video games, and (c) papers that will be published later this year my erdős-bacon number is 6
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Washington State Labor Council AFL-CIO @wslc.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
Solidarity with our @uaw4121.bsky.social researchers ✊!!!
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
Some photos from @jayapal.house.gov’s Town Hall last night and today’s @uaw4121.bsky.social rally to defend federal funding for our scientists and researchers!
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
lol it me
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
as a sophie germain fan seeing chladni plates show up on severance was kinda sick
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Julia Van Etten @couchmicroscopy.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
To update people on the NSF PRFB situation: despite the court challenge and rescinding the original memo, the NSF has continued to comply with the executive order. They have not communicated with us at all and our paychecks are still canceled indefinitely. I know people who cannot pay their rent.
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
Should be coming out this year!
Cover reading:

London Mathematical Society
Lecture Note Series 498

Polynomial Functors
A Mathematical Theory of Interaction

Nelson Niu and David I. Spivak

LONDON MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY
EST. 1865

CAMBRIDGE
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
Have any mathematicians watched this “Prime Target” show? I just saw the trailer and it’s managed to accidentally be one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen
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ꭓle Ormsby 𓆙 @e-infinity.space · 22/01/2025
Thinking about my trans friends and students this morning, who are some of the most real, brilliant, vibrant, and strong people I know.
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 22/01/2025
Really disorienting to watch a homotopy theory talk where “Cat” stands not for “Category” but for *squints* “Catalan”
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Starbucks Workers United @sbworkersunited.org · 20/12/2024
🔥 TWAS THE STRIKE BEFORE CHRISTMAS! 🔥✊ Starbucks baristas are going on five days of escalating ULP strikes in response to the company backtracking on our promised path forward, starting tomorrow in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Seattle... and soon, from coast-to-coast. 🧵
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
I’m ashamed to admit that I still have to look up which one’s zeta and which one’s xi
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
Few things have delighted me more lately than this thread of Roxane Gay discovering the show How to Get Away with Murder
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Maggie Astor @maggieastor.bsky.social · 04/11/2024
As of this morning, @nytguildtech.bsky.social, which represents NYT tech workers, is on strike. Unless it's resolved while today's Wordle is still live, this streak is gone. Here's a 🧵 with info on the picket line and how you can help. PLEASE READ — the rules may not be what you think!
A Wordle stats page showing 997 played, 99% win, 652 current streak, 652 max streak. Guess distribution 1 one, 69 twos, 384 threes, 361 fours, 135 fives, 42 sixes
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 21/08/2024
This was incredibly depressing to wake up to. I pushed to make both math and theater racially diverse and equitable while I was an undergrad at MIT, but none of that works if you don’t have a diverse student body to begin with news.mit.edu/2024/qa-unde...
A: Last June, the Supreme Court ruled that colleges and universities that receive federal funding may no longer consider race in undergraduate admissions decisions. As I explained in a blog post at the time, we expected that this would result in fewer students from historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups enrolling at MIT. That’s what has happened.

As a baseline, in recent years around 25% of our enrolling undergraduate students have identified as Black, Hispanic, and/or Native American and Pacific Islander. For the incoming Class of 2028, that number is about 16%. (For comparison, federal data show that 45% of K-12 students in American public schools are classified as members of these groups.)

While this is a substantial change in the demographic composition of the Class of 2028 compared with recent years, I want to be clear that it does not bring any aggregate change in the quantifiable characteristics we use to predict academic success at MIT, such as performance…
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 19/08/2024
Registration for SUBgroups is now open! Register here: gradsubgroups.org Please share with any first-year math grad students you know who are looking for some regular peer support!
gradsubgroups.org
SUBgroups
Welcome! Registration for our September 2024 cohort is open until August 30!All registration details can be found here.Registration for the October cohort will open in a few weeks:for a reminder email...
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Dex Anderson @dexanderson.com · 18/03/2024
this story from today's Ask A Manager is killing me
2. The union

Wasn’t me but a guy I knew. He was a fan of certain “mind altering vegetation,” as was his coworker. He agreed to sell some to his coworker and soon became “the guy” at the auto repair place. One of the managers noticed him always having quick little chats with his coworkers and ran in the complete wrong direction with it and thought my friend was trying to organize a union and he (the manager) was going to stop that.

So my friend was terrified he was going to get fired until he realized that retaliating against him for selling pot was totally legal but retaliating against him for pro-union activity wasn’t. And so, to protect himself from being fired for being mistaken as a union organizer, he organized a union.
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 05/12/2023
Thanks Kyle—beat me to my own announcement!
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 04/11/2023
Here’s a recording of my 20 minute ACT 2023 talk on categories of polynomials! (This was also pretty much the talk I gave at JMM earlier this year.) youtu.be/q2b_z-ewo-k
youtu.be
Nelson Niu - Monoidal structures on generalised polynomial categories
Talk at Applied Category Theory 2023Recently, there has been renewed interest in the theory and applications of de Paiva’s dialectica categories and their re...
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 09/10/2023
can’t believe connections knew it was my birthday yesterday
Screenshot from NYTimes Connections for 10/8/23

Create four groups of four!

BATH ROCK BARS BIRTHDAY
SOAP RECEPTION WEDDING SANDWICH
ANNIVERSARY COMIC DERBY SHOWER
READING SERVICE MET SIGNAL
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 03/10/2023
yesterday i asked my professor what i should be doing now that i'm in my third year of grad school and he spent an hour basically telling me to make more category theory friends so please, be my category theory friend
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Nelson Niu @nelsonniu.bsky.social · 03/10/2023
ok i think i followed all the math folks on here that i recognize, hi 👋
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