Special Meeting: Southwest Center for Arithmetic Geometry

University Of Arizona, Tucson AZ

Investigators

Abstract

ABSTRACT Principal Investigator: Savitt, David L. Proposal Number: DMS - 0852464 Institution: University of Arizona Title: Special Meeting: Southwest Center for Arithmetic Geometry The Southwest Center for Arithmetic Geometry was founded in 1997 with grant support from the National Science Foundation, and renewed in 2002, 2006, and 2009. The main activity of the Southwest Center is the Arizona Winter School (AWS), an annual meeting which has become a prominent national event, and which provides high-level training and research experience for graduate students in arithmetic geometry. The AWS is an intensive five-day meeting, organized around a different central topic each year, which features a set of courses by leading and emerging experts. The AWS is not a traditional conference: the speakers organize courses of four lectures, with lecture notes provided in advance, and propose projects for graduate students to work on during the meeting. Each speaker hosts working sessions nightly during the meeting, and on the last day the students present their findings to the entire group. The result is a particularly intense and focused five days of mathematical activity for both students and speakers. Recent Winter School topics have included non-archimedean geometry, transcendence theory, and quadratic forms. Upcoming AWS topics will be guided by future mathematical developments and the availability of key speakers. At the Winter School, connections among peers are formed, and mentoring relationships between students and senior researchers are developed. As has been the case at previous Winter Schools, subsequent collaborations between participants at all levels are the norm. Experienced researchers develop new interests and see new connections that lead to important published results; students make concrete strides toward becoming research mathematicians; and post-doctoral assistants gain valuable mentoring experience, which helps to develop their academic careers. The Southwest Center website shares reusable content from the Winter Schools, including lecture notes, project descriptions, and audio and video of lectures. Since our site will contain a thorough record of each Winter School, the dialogues begun at the Winter School will be extended to the greater mathematical community, and the efforts of the Winter School participants will be available to all mathematicians indefinitely.