Mid-Atlantic Topology Conference

University Of Virginia Main Campus, Charlottesville VA

Investigators

Abstract

The first Mid-Atlantic topology conference will take place on April 25-26, 2015, at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Broadly speaking, the theme of the conference is algebraic topology. There will be eight plenary lectures, giving presentations of major recent developments in this area by leaders in the field. Our goal is to provide a stimulating setting in which participants will be encouraged to discuss their ideas and foster new collaborations. Focused research conferences such as this one play a fundamental role in the development and dissemination of research in mathematics. Such conferences serve as a forum in which researchers can announce new results and explain their ideas to other experts in the field, long before results appear in refereed journals. The themes of the conference are homotopy theory, group theory (especially cohomology of groups), and interactions between them via the classifying space functor. Cohomology of groups is important both in group theory and algebraic topology. On one hand, methods of algebraic topology are useful for the calculation of cohomology of groups. Conversely, important questions in algebraic topology often can be reduced to questions about group cohomology. There are many instances of this phenomenon. One important example is the role played in homotopy theory by the cohomology of Morava stabilizer groups. Another example occurs in the study of the connection between the (p-completed) homotopy type of the classifying space of a finite group and the structure of the fusion system on its p-Sylow subgroup. Our plenary speakers are leading experts in these subjects. Specifically, they are: Mark Behrens (Notre Dame), Paul Goerss (Northwestern), Mike Hill (University of Virginia), Nitu Kitchloo (Johns Hopkins), Bob Oliver (Paris 13), Geoffrey Powell (Angers), Douglas Ravenel (Rochester) and Kirsten Wickelgren (Georgia Tech). More information about the conference can be found at http://pi.math.virginia.edu/topology/Conference2015/