2003 Summer Conference on Topology and its Applications; July 9-12, 2003; Washington, DC

Howard University, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

Abstract Award: DMS-0302516 Principal Investigator: Neil Hindman The 2003 Summer Conference on Topology and its Applications will be held July 9-12, 2003, at Howard University, Washington, DC. It will be the 18th in a series of conferences begun at City College of New York in 1984 and held recently at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, in 2000, at City College of New York in 2001, and at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in 2002. There will be six invited plenary speakers: Vitaly Bergelson of Ohio State, W. Wistar Comfort of Wesleyan University, Niky Kamran of McGill University, Jan van Mill of Vrije Universitaat, Peter Olver of the University of Minnesota, and Alex Simpson of the University of Edinburgh. There will be a workshop in Set Theoretic Topology led by Stevo Todorcevic of the University of Toronto. All of the plenary speakers are recognized authorities in their fields, and Todorcevic is widely recognized as one of the two best set theorists in the world. In addition, six special sessions are planned: Set Theoretic Topology, Topological Dynamics and Ergodic Theory, Topological Groupoids and Their Applications, Topological Groups and Semigroups, Topology and Computer Science, and a session in honor of W. Wistar Comfort. The goals of this conference, and of the entire series are: (1) bring to the participants the leading researchers and the latest developments in topology and related areas; (2) foster applications of topology to these related areas; (3) expose graduate students to the excitement and intense research activity of such a conference and help train them to do work in applications of topology; and (4) facilitate communication and collaboration among topologists from a wide geographic area, both from this country and overseas, at a time of year which is convenient to many faculty members. As is witnessed by the special session on Topology and Computer Science, applications of general topology have been growing in recent years. A particular benefit of this conference series has been the extent to which it has successfully encouraged the participation of women and underrepresented minorities. (Three of the most recent Ph.D. graduates from Howard university, all black females, each attended and presented talks at at least one of the conferences in the series.) The location of this conference at Howard University will make it convenient for the active participation of several black graduate students.