Title:	Associate Professor
Office:	General Academic Building, 405
Phone:	(940) 565-4303
E-mail:	wcherryunt.edu

Education: Ph.D., Yale University, 1993

Personal Site:  http://wcherry.math.unt.edu/index.html

Research Interests: Cherry works in areas that can be considered complex analysis, number theory, and algebraic geometry. He is especially interested in connections between rational solutions and functional solutions to systems of algebraic equations. For instance, consider the equation of the unit circle, x²+y²=1. This equation has many rational solutions, such as (3/5)²+(4/5)²=1, coming from Pythagorean triples. The unit circle equation also has the "functional solution" (sin t)²+(cos t)²=1. On the other hand, if n>4, then xⁿ+yⁿ=1 has only a few rational solutions (this is Fermat's Last Theorem/Weil's Theorem or the Mordell Conjecture/Faltings Theorem, depending on what one means by "few" and "rational"). Similarly, xⁿ+yⁿ=1 has no non-constant "entire function" solutions -- this follows easily from, for instance, the Uniformization theorem. Much of Cherry's research is in a field called "p-adic" analysis. Working with functions of p-adic numbers is sort of halfway in between algebra and analysis, so the idea is that studying p-adic problems might provide insights into why the existence of many rational solutions to equations seems to be related to the existence functional solutions. Another area Cherry works in is known as Nevanlinna theory, which extends the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra to meromorphic functions. Finally, Cherry continues to have research interests in classical complex analysis, particularly the use of geometric methods to better understand various inequalities.