Hello! I am Novi Herawati Bong and I am a temporary assistant professor at the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Delaware. My research are in combinatorics, especially graph theory. My work includes extremal graph theory, degree/diameter problem, graph labelling, threshold strong dimension, inverse eigenvalue problem and zero forcing numbers. I enjoy teaching very much since it allows me to share my knowledge and also learn from others (including my students).

I pursued my higher education in 6 countries across Asia, Europe and Australia. During my undergraduate studies in the University of Indonesia, I received AUN NUS Study Award for studying one semester in National University of Singapore in 2007. I was awarded Erasmus Mundus scholarship from European Union to pursue my master degree in ALGANT (Algebra, Geometry and Number Theory) program in the Universiteit Leiden (The Netherlands) and Université Bordeaux 1 (France). I obtained my PhD degree in 2017 from the University of Newcastle, Australia with 2013 University of Newcastle International Postgraduate Research Scholarship (UNIPRS) and University of Newcastle Research Scholarship Central (UNRSC50:50). During my PhD program, I had the opportunity to spend a two-months research visit at University of West Bohemia, Pilsen, Czech Republic. I shared some of these experiences in UD Department of Mathematical Sciences’ Newsletter (see page 8).

Besides research and teaching, I like walking, hiking, being in the nature, playing badminton and also learning languages. I speak Hakka, Bahasa Indonesia, Mandarin, English and Spanish. I have also learned Dutch, French and a little bit of Czech.

I am interested in mindfulness and meditation as well. I am a trainee teacher for Mindfulness based Cognitive Therapy for Life under Oxford Mindfulness Center.

Here is my CV (May 2024)