About

email: matthew (dot) hayden (at) stonybrook (dot) edu
office hours: 12--1pm Th/F, Social & Behavioral Sciences, N220

My research interests are in mathematical linguistics, particularly in the subregularity of morphology and syntax. My current work is focused on assessing the complexity of morphological reduplication. I am happily advised by Thomas Graf.

I am from Indianapolis. In my speech, I proudly sport the pin-pen merger, the cot-caught merger, needs washed, and punctual whenever!

Research

keywords: mathematical linguistics; subregular linguistics; syntax; morphology; formal grammar; automata

Publications

• Hayden, M. (2026). Algebraic Classification of Reduplicative Processes. In Proceedings of the Society for Computation in Linguistics 2026, pages 447–459, San Diego, CA. Association for Computational Linguistics. [pdf]
• Graf, T., Hayden, M., Heinz, J., Moss, L. S., & Wang, Y. (2025). Proceedings of the 18th Meeting on the Mathematics of Language. In Proceedings of the 18th Meeting on the Mathematics of Language.
• Hayden, M., Morrow, B., Yang, W., & Wang, J. (2023). Quantifying the role of airborne transmission in the spread of COVID-19. Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering, 20(1), 587–612. https://doi.org/10.3934/mbe.2023027

Presentations

• Hayden, M. (2026). Algebraic classification of reduplicative processes. Poster presented at the Society for Computation in Linguistics 2026. [poster]
• Hayden, M. (2026). Ambiguity in language. Talk given at the 16th Gathering 4 Gardner Conference. San Francisco, CA. [info]
• Hayden, M. (2025). Tightening the bound on the complexity of reduplication. Talk given at the 2025 SYNC Conference. CUNY Graduate Center. New York, NY. [info]
• Hayden, M. (2025). Algebraic classification of reduplicative processes. Talk given at the 2025 Rutgers Subregular Morphophonology Workshop. Rutgers University. New Brunswick, NJ. [info]
• Hayden, M. (2024). My degree in enigmatology. Talk given at the 15th Gathering 4 Gardner Conference. Atlanta, GA. [info]
• Hayden, M., Morrow, B., Yang, W., & Wang, J. (2022). Quantifying the role of airborne transmission in the spread of COVID-19. Talk given at the UTC Special Summer Colloquium Series. University of Tennessee. Chattanooga, TN.

Teaching

• Instructor. LIN 405: Writing in Linguistics. Fall 2026. Stony Brook University. Stony Brook, NY.
• Instructor. Pre-College Summer Program in Computational Linguistics. Summer 2026. Stony Brook University. Stony Brook, NY.
• Teaching Assistant. LIN 101: Human Language. Fall 2025. Stony Brook University. Stony Brook, NY.
• Teaching Assistant. LIN 361/539: Mathematical Methods in Linguistics. Fall 2025. Stony Brook University. Stony Brook, NY.
• Undergraduate Teaching Assistant. M119 A Brief Survey of Calculus or M118 Finite Mathematics. Semesterly 2021--2024. Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.

Organizing

• Technical Editor. Proceedings of the 18th Meeting on the Mathematics of Language. 2025.
• Local Organizer. The 18th Meeting on the Mathematics of Language. August 2025. Institute for Advanced Computational Science, Stony Brook University.
• Student Organizer. Mathematical Linguistics Reading Group. 2025--2026. Department of Linguistics, Stony Brook Unviersity.
• Brown Bag Coordinator. Spring 2026. Department of Linguistics, Stony Brook Unviersity.
• SYNC Coordinator (off year). Fall 2025. CUNY Graduate Center.

Other

• I was recently quoted in the New York Times.