Dr Jim Belk

  • Lecturer in Pure Mathematics (Mathematics)

telephone: 01413306527
email: Jim.Belk@glasgow.ac.uk
pronouns: He/him/his

School of Mathematics & Statistics, Room 426, University of Glasgow

Import to contacts

ORCID iDhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-9392-3378

Biography

Personal Website: https://jimbelk.github.io/web/

Research interests

My research interests include geometric group theory, dynamical systems, and fractal geometry. Within group theory, I am especially interested in discrete groups of homeomorphisms such as Thompson's groups and self-similar groups, and associated questions about computability, finiteness properties, and embeddings. Within dynamical systems my main interest is complex dynamics, including Thurston equivalence of branched covers, connections to mapping class groups and Teichmüller theory, and the topology and quasiconformal geometry of Julia sets. I am also interested in dynamics of homeomorphisms more broadly, including symbolic dynamics, as well as homeomorphism groups of fractals.

Research groups

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021
Number of items: 14.

2025

Belk, James ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9392-3378, Hyde, James and Moore, Justin Tatch (2025) A piecewise linear homeomorphim of the circle which is periodic under renormalization. Groups, Geometry, and Dynamics, (Accepted for Publication)

Belk, James ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9392-3378 and Forrest, Bradley (2025) Quasisymmetries of finitely ramified Julia sets. Mathematische Annalen, (doi: 10.1007/s00208-025-03238-y) (Early Online Publication)

Belk, Jim ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9392-3378, Bleak, Collin, Matucci, Francesco and Zaremsky, Matthew C.B. (2025) Hyperbolic groups satisfy the Boone-Higman conjecture. Duke Mathematical Journal, (Accepted for Publication)

Belk, Jim ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9392-3378, Bleak, C., Quick, M. and Skipper, R. (2025) The Maximality of T in Thompson’s group V. Archiv der Mathematik, 125, pp. 1-7. (doi: 10.1007/s00013-025-02136-8)

Belk, James ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9392-3378 and Matucci, Francesco (2025) Boone-Higman embeddings for contracting self-similar groups. Groups, Geometry, and Dynamics, (doi: 10.4171/GGD/898) (Early Online Publication)

Belk, James ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9392-3378, Bleak, Collin, Matucci, Francesco and Zaremsky, Matthew C.B. (2025) Progress around the Boone-Higman conjecture. EMS Surveys in Mathematical Sciences, (Accepted for Publication)

Belk, James ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9392-3378, Bleak, Collin, Quick, Martyn and Skipper, Rachel (2025) Type systems and maximal subgroups of Thompson’s group V. Transactions of the American Mathematical Society Series B, 12, pp. 417-469. (doi: 10.1090/btran/204)

2024

Belk, James, Elliott, Luke and Matucci, Francesco (2024) A short proof of Rubin’s theorem. Israel Journal of Mathematics, (doi: 10.1007/s11856-024-2700-3) (Early Online Publication)

Labrosse, Nicolas ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4638-157X, Belk, Jim ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9392-3378, Busquier Cerdan, Heri, Cheng, Wenya ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9684-769X, Grey, Stuart ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9274-0601, Maguire, Joseph ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3718-7679, Prime, Claudia, Rivera, Errol ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2818-0205, Soler, Linnea ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4859-594X and Speirits, Fiona ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6460-5231 (2024) Enabling Change for Inclusive Assessment in Quantitative Disciplines. Assessment in Higher Education (AHE) Conference 2024, Manchester, UK, 20-21 June 2024.

2023

Belk, James and Matucci, Francesco (2023) Conjugator length in Thompson’s groups. Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society, 55(2), pp. 793-810. (doi: 10.1112/blms.12757)

2022

Belk, James ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9392-3378, Lanier, Justin, Margalit, Dan and Winarski, Rebecca R. (2022) Recognizing topological polynomials by lifting trees. Duke Mathematical Journal, 171(17), pp. 3401-3480. (doi: 10.1215/00127094-2022-0043)

Belk, James, Hyde, James and Matucci, Francesco (2022) Embedding Q into a finitely presented group. Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, 59, pp. 561-567. (doi: 10.1090/bull/1762)

Belk, James ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9392-3378 and Zaremsky, Matthew C. B. (2022) Twisted Brin-Thompson groups. Geometry and Topology, 26(3), pp. 1189-1223. (doi: 10.2140/gt.2022.26.1189)

2021

Belk, James ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9392-3378, Bleak, Collin and Matucci, Francesco (2021) Rational embeddings of hyperbolic groups. Journal of Combinatorial Algebra, 5(2), pp. 123-183. (doi: 10.4171/JCA/52)

This list was generated on Sun Oct 19 21:26:53 2025 BST.
Jump to: Articles | Conference or Workshop Item
Number of items: 14.

Articles

Belk, James ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9392-3378, Hyde, James and Moore, Justin Tatch (2025) A piecewise linear homeomorphim of the circle which is periodic under renormalization. Groups, Geometry, and Dynamics, (Accepted for Publication)

Belk, James ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9392-3378 and Forrest, Bradley (2025) Quasisymmetries of finitely ramified Julia sets. Mathematische Annalen, (doi: 10.1007/s00208-025-03238-y) (Early Online Publication)

Belk, Jim ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9392-3378, Bleak, Collin, Matucci, Francesco and Zaremsky, Matthew C.B. (2025) Hyperbolic groups satisfy the Boone-Higman conjecture. Duke Mathematical Journal, (Accepted for Publication)

Belk, Jim ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9392-3378, Bleak, C., Quick, M. and Skipper, R. (2025) The Maximality of T in Thompson’s group V. Archiv der Mathematik, 125, pp. 1-7. (doi: 10.1007/s00013-025-02136-8)

Belk, James ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9392-3378 and Matucci, Francesco (2025) Boone-Higman embeddings for contracting self-similar groups. Groups, Geometry, and Dynamics, (doi: 10.4171/GGD/898) (Early Online Publication)

Belk, James ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9392-3378, Bleak, Collin, Matucci, Francesco and Zaremsky, Matthew C.B. (2025) Progress around the Boone-Higman conjecture. EMS Surveys in Mathematical Sciences, (Accepted for Publication)

Belk, James ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9392-3378, Bleak, Collin, Quick, Martyn and Skipper, Rachel (2025) Type systems and maximal subgroups of Thompson’s group V. Transactions of the American Mathematical Society Series B, 12, pp. 417-469. (doi: 10.1090/btran/204)

Belk, James, Elliott, Luke and Matucci, Francesco (2024) A short proof of Rubin’s theorem. Israel Journal of Mathematics, (doi: 10.1007/s11856-024-2700-3) (Early Online Publication)

Belk, James and Matucci, Francesco (2023) Conjugator length in Thompson’s groups. Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society, 55(2), pp. 793-810. (doi: 10.1112/blms.12757)

Belk, James ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9392-3378, Lanier, Justin, Margalit, Dan and Winarski, Rebecca R. (2022) Recognizing topological polynomials by lifting trees. Duke Mathematical Journal, 171(17), pp. 3401-3480. (doi: 10.1215/00127094-2022-0043)

Belk, James, Hyde, James and Matucci, Francesco (2022) Embedding Q into a finitely presented group. Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, 59, pp. 561-567. (doi: 10.1090/bull/1762)

Belk, James ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9392-3378 and Zaremsky, Matthew C. B. (2022) Twisted Brin-Thompson groups. Geometry and Topology, 26(3), pp. 1189-1223. (doi: 10.2140/gt.2022.26.1189)

Belk, James ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9392-3378, Bleak, Collin and Matucci, Francesco (2021) Rational embeddings of hyperbolic groups. Journal of Combinatorial Algebra, 5(2), pp. 123-183. (doi: 10.4171/JCA/52)

Conference or Workshop Item

Labrosse, Nicolas ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4638-157X, Belk, Jim ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9392-3378, Busquier Cerdan, Heri, Cheng, Wenya ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9684-769X, Grey, Stuart ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9274-0601, Maguire, Joseph ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3718-7679, Prime, Claudia, Rivera, Errol ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2818-0205, Soler, Linnea ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4859-594X and Speirits, Fiona ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6460-5231 (2024) Enabling Change for Inclusive Assessment in Quantitative Disciplines. Assessment in Higher Education (AHE) Conference 2024, Manchester, UK, 20-21 June 2024.

This list was generated on Sun Oct 19 21:26:53 2025 BST.

Supervision


Picture of Dr Jim Belk