GSCAGT

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May 26 - 28, 2023

Philadelphia, PA

Temple University

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Location

The conference will be located at 1925 N 12th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19122, in SERC (the Science Education and Research Center). Plenary talks will be recorded and livestreamed via Zoom.

About

This conference aims to expose graduate students in algebra, geometry, and topology to current research, and provide them with an opportunity to present and discuss their own research. It also intends to provide a forum for graduate students to engage with each other as well as expert faculty members in their areas of research. Most of the talks at the conference will be given by graduate students, with four given by distinguished keynote speakers.

This event is sponsored by the Department of Mathematics at Temple University and the NSF.

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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statement

The organizers of the GTA Philly Conference share the values and commitment to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion as expressed by the American Mathematical Society.

"The American Mathematical Society recognizes the breadth of people, thought, and experience that contribute to mathematics. We value the contributions of all members of our mathematics community to improve mathematics research, education, and the standing of the mathematical sciences. We welcome everyone interested in mathematics as we work to build a community that is diverse, respectful, accessible, and inclusive. We are committed to ensuring equitable access to mathematics opportunities and resources for people regardless of gender, gender identity or expression, race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion or religious belief, age, marital status, sexual orientation, disabilities, veteran status, immigration status, or any other social or physical component of their identity."

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Registration

Registration for the conference is now closed.

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Jennifer Hom (Georgia Institute of Technology)

• Title: Knots, groups, and 3-manifolds
• Abstract: Knots in the 3-sphere, under the operation of connected, form a monoid. However, lacking inverses, this fails to be a group. We remedy this by considering knots modulo an equivalence relation called concordance, to obtain the knot concordance group. We discuss various properties of this group. We will also discuss the closely related 3-dimensional homology cobordism group.

Sara Maloni (University of Virginia)

• Title: Geometric structures associated to higher-rank Anosov representations
• Abstract: The Teichmüller space of a surface S is the space of marked hyperbolic structure on S. By considering the holonomy representation of such structures, it can also be seen as a connected component of representations from the fundamental group of S into PSL(2,R) consisting entirely of discrete and faithful representations. Generalizing this point of view, Higher Teichmüller Theory studies connected components of representations from the fundamental group of S into more general semisimple Lie groups like PSL(d, R) which consist entirely of discrete and faithful representations

  In this talk we will give a survey of some aspects of Higher Teichmüller Theory, and will make links with the recent powerful notion of Anosov representations. We will describe joint work with Daniele Alessandrini, Nicolas Tholozan and Anna Wienhard where we describe how most of these representations correspond to deformation of geometric structures on smooth fiber bundles over S.

Craig Sutton (Dartmouth College)

• Title: The Mighty Laplacian and Symmetry: Generic Properties of Laplace Eigenfunctions
• Abstract: The study of the Laplace operator and its eigenfunctions has been of interest to mathematicians and physicists for centuries. For instance, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, Chladni intrigued audiences with experiments exhibiting intricate patterns (i.e., nodal sets) formed by sand sprinkled across a vibrating plate. And, in quantum mechanics, Laplace eigenfunctions are interpreted as probability density functions associated to the position of a free particle. Inspired by work of Karen Uhlenbeck, we will explore generic properties of Laplace eigenfunctions focusing on recent results involving spaces with non-trivial symmetry groups. This is joint work with Donato Cianci (GEICO), Chris Judge (Indiana) and Samuel Lin (Oklahoma).

John Voight (Dartmouth College)

• Title: Effective methods in inverse Galois theory
• Abstract: Is every finite group a Galois group over the rationals? Unfortunately, we don't know in general, even though much ink has been spilled trying to answer this question, from many perspectives! In this talk, we spill a bit more: we report on joint work concerning effective methods from topology and geometry to realize Galois groups (with explicit or even nice polynomials, in practice or at least in principle).

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Each year, we include a panel discussion on topics in diversity, inclusion, and justice to promote reflection and discussions among attendees, help dispel the myth that mathematics is inherently apolitical, and normalize the discussion of DIJ issues within the math community. This year, in recognition of this growing movement in labor organizing within the US and across the globe, we would like to focus the discussion on labor rights as it relates to our work as graduate employees.

Panel Speakers:

• Claudio Gómez-Gonzáles (Carleton College)
• Timm Jones (Temple University)
• Nicole Zalewski (Temple University)

Schedule

Detailed Schedule

Abstracts

Talk Abstracts

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Logistics

Conference events will be located at 1925 N 12th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19122, in SERC (the Science Education and Research Center). Plenary talks will be livestreamed via Zoom. Our conference dinner, catered by local Philadelphia restaurants, will be held at Cherry Streey Pier.

Funded participants will be provided housing in one of the student dorms on campus. The dorms are suite-style and include private bedrooms, but we expect that each participant will need to share common space and bathrooms with one other participant. If you have a roommate in mind, please indicate so on our Housing form when it is sent out to participants.

Past years' websites - including lists of participants and titles/abstracts of talks - and keynote talks:

• GSCAGT, 2015 Website

• 2nd Annual GSCAGT, 2016 Website

  Jordan Ellenberg Elisenda Grigsby Zajj Daugherty Alan Reid

• 3rd Annual GSCAGT, 2017 Website

  Holly Krieger Spencer Dowdall Emily Peters Renato Bettiol

• 4th Annual GSCAGT, 2018 Website

  Kathryn Mann Daniel Krashen Jean-François Lafont Helen Wong

• 5th Annual GSCAGT, 2019 Website

  Dusa McDuff Mona Merling Priyam Patel Ravi Vakil

• 6th Annual GSCAGT, 2021 Website

  Moira Chas Shelly Harvey Diane Maclagan Davi Maximo

• 7th Annual GSCAGT, 2022 Website

If you have any questions or concerns do not hesitate to contact us at: gta[dot]temple[dot]math[at]gmail[dot]com. You may also contact the individual graduate organizers, but please reach out to the conference email first:

• Ross Griebenow: ross.griebenow[at]temple[dot]edu
• Rob Oakley: oakley[at]temple[dot]edu
• Aniruddha Sudarshan: aniruddha.sudarshan[at]temple[dot]edu
• Yi Wang: yiwang4[at]sas[dot]upenn[dot]edu
• Brandis Whitfield: brandis[at]temple[dot]edu
• Jingfeng Xia: brandis[at]temple[dot]edu