The Institute for Mathematics and its Applications at the University of Minnesota will host a Thematic Year on Applications of Algebraic Geometry, September 2006 through June 2007. Various programs and workshops associated with the Thematic Year will be of interest to the commutative algebra community, including:

• 9/18-22/06, Workshop: Algorithms in algebraic geometry (organized by Alicia Dickenstein, Frank-Olaf Schreyer, and Andrew Sommese)
• 10/23-27/06, Workshop: Software for algebraic geometry (organized by Mike Stillman, Nobuki Takayama, and Jan Verschelde)
• 4/13-14/07, Tutorial: What is algebraic geometry? (organized by David Cox and Bernd Sturmfels)