Topology Student Workshop

Georgia Tech Research Corporation, Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

This award supports participation in the Topology Students Workshop (TSW) held at the Georgia Institute of Technology during June 4-8, 2018. This is a five-day research and professional development workshop for graduate students in the fields of geometric group theory, geometry, and topology, designed to expose them to a wide range of current research, and to help build their communication, networking, and problem-sharing skills. Approximately sixty students will participate, guided by ten mentors, who come from a wide range of career stages and research backgrounds within this field. The conference provides essential training for the next generation of scientists, giving the participants many tools that will help them to succeed as scientists at the highest levels in graduate school and beyond. The professional development and research sides of the workshop run in tandem, with mentors giving guidance in both areas. The workshop emphasizes important career skills for mathematicians that are typically not taught in graduate school, including networking and etiquette, the job and grant application process, effective communication and research skills, and a panel discussion on career paths. The guidance is intended to be particularly beneficial to students from underrepresented groups. Mathematical topics presented at TSW will cover a broad range within geometry and topology, including contact and symplectic topology, three-manifolds, hyperbolic geometry, group actions, and complex dynamics. The research talks will model good communication and will also introduce research areas and relevant problems to students who are embarking on a research career. For many of the students, the TSW is the first conference at which they are presenting their own results; the workshop is designed to facilitate this experience. For instance, the first professional development session is an introduction to conferences and how best to benefit from them. The goal is to build confidence and research potential among students. The skills addressed here can be especially beneficial to students from minority groups, as indicated from responses from participants in previous iterations of the program. The panel discussion on career paths involves mathematicians from organizations such as NSA, Amazon, Google, and private high schools. Effective communication is a major theme: two evening sessions are devoted to workshop presentations in small groups; the final presentations are videotaped and critiqued by those in attendance. The web site for the conference is http://tsw.gatech.edu. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.