Collaborative Research: Rocky Mountain-Great Plains Graduate Research Workshops in Combinatorics

Iowa State University, Ames IA

Investigators

Abstract

The Rocky Mountain-Great Plains Graduate Research Workshop in Combinatorics (GRWC), will be held in Laramie, WY (2016), Denver, CO (2017) and Ames, IA (2018), building upon successful NSF-funded workshops in 2014 and 2015. Each workshop will involve approximately 39 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, and 10 or more faculty members in an intense two-week collaborative research experience. Participants will work to solve important, relevant problems from graph theory, enumeration, combinatorial matrix theory, finite geometry, and other modern sub-disciplines of combinatorics. Students will prepare open problems prior to the workshop under the guidance of faculty mentors from the organizing committee, which consists of faculty from Iowa State University, the University of Colorado Denver, the University of Denver, the University of Nebraska Lincoln, and the University of Wyoming. These problems, presented at the workshop by their proposers or hosted on the workshop's secure problem wiki, will be worked on by small groups of participating students, postdocs, and faculty. For more information about the GRWC, including a detailed description of the workshop format, please see the workshop website at http://sites.google.com/site/rmgpgrwc The goal of the collaborations at the heart of the GRWC is to produce high-quality, publishable research on a variety of topics. Another longer-term goal of the workshop is to help student participants expand their professional research networks. A strong research network is often a crucial part of building a generative and sustainable research program, and establishing these connections at an early career stage can have a long-term positive effect on the quality, impact, and depth of a professional's research portfolio. Participation in the GRWC will allow students to cultivate a large professional network of peers from the combinatorics community with whom they will be able to interact and collaborate throughout their careers. The GRWC will also offer professional development workshops to help students and postdocs prepare for job searches and future careers in academia, industry, or government.