Newcastle University

Roles and Responsibilities

School 

• Chairman of the Board of Studies
• Degree Programme Director - Programme Development  

Faculty 

• Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies
• Faculty Programme Liaison Officer (on the CASAP programme)  

University

• Convenor of the Student Disciplinary Panel
• Regulations Sub-Committee (of UTLC)
• Academic Audit Committee

Research Interests

Current Work

I have been interested for many years in the subgroup structure of the Classical Groups, both finite and infinite. In particular I am interested determining classes of subgroups that are maximal as subgroups, both describing the subgroups in terms of geometric configurations and proving maximality using natural geometric techniques. I am also interested classes of almost simple subgroups that can be described geometrically, even if they are not maximal.

I am interested in certain geometric configurations. Sometimes, but not always, these are related to subgroups of Classical groups. The configurations that I have a particular interest are: caps in projective spaces; ovoids and partial ovoids in polar spaces; special sets on hermitian surfaces; blocking sets on hermitian surfaces.

Undergraduate Teaching

MAS1404 (Mathematics for Computing Science)
MAS1043 (Optimisation and Linear Methods)

• Cossidente A, King OH. Blocking sets of H(n,q²) with respect to generators. Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series A 2011, 118(4), 1212–1217.
• King O, Robertson G. On the K-theory of boundary $C^*$-algebras of $\widetilde A_2$ groups. Journal of K-theory 2012. In Press.
• Cossidente A, King OH. On a family of minimal blocking sets of the Hermitian surface. Journal of Combinatorial Designs 2011, 19(4), 313-316.
• Cossidente A, King OH. Some Two-Character Sets. Designs, Codes and Cryptography 2010, 56(2-3), 105-113.
• Cossidente A, King O. On the geometry of the exceptional group G 2(q), q even. Designs, Codes, and Cryptography 2008, 47(1-3), 145-157.
• Cossidente A, King OH. On twisted tensor product group embeddings and the spin representation of symplectic groups. Advances in Geometry 2007, 7(1), 55-64.
• Cossidente A, King OH. Maximal subgroups of finite orthogonal groups stabilizing spreads of lines. Communications in Algebra 2006, 34(12), 4291-4309.
• Cossidente A, King OH, Marino G. Special sets of the Hermitian surface and Segre invariants. European Journal of Combinatorics 2006, 27(5), 629-634.
• King OH. The subgroup structure of finite classical groups in terms of geometric configurations. In:Webb, B.S., ed. Survey in Combinatorics, 2005.Cambridge:Cambridge University Press,2005, pp. 29-56.
• Cossidente A, King OH. Maximal orthogonal subgroups of finite unitary groups. Journal of Group Theory 2004,7 4 447-462.
• Cossidente A, King OH. On some maximal subgroups of unitary groups. Communications in Algebra 2004,32 3 989-995.
• Cossidente A, King OH. Twisted tensor product group embeddings and complete partial ovoids on quadrics in PG(2^t - 1,q). Journal of Algebra 2004, 273(2), 854-868.
• Cossidente A, King OH. Maximal subgroups of finite symplectic groups stabilizing spreads of lines. Journal of Algebra 2002,258 2 493-506.
• Cossidente A, King OH. Group-theoretic characterisations of classical ovoids. In: Finite Geometries: Proceedings of the Fourth Isle of Thorns Conference. 2001, Kluwer.
• Cossidente A, King OH. Embeddings of finite classical groups over field extensions and their geometry. Advances in Geometry 2002, 2(1), 13-27.
• Cossidente A, King OH. Transitive and co-transitive caps. Bulletin of the Belgian Mathematical Society - Simon Stevin 2000, 7(3), 343-353.