Author: Graham Leuschke

Koszul

Koszul_GrenobleAron Simis sends in this photo of Jean-Louis Koszul, taken in Grenoble France.
Aron writes, “I wonder if this of interest to the community to post the picture. I consider it quite rare, since I spent most of my mathematical life talking about “Koszul” and finally met my mathematics in person!”
Also in the photo (l to r): Marcel Morales, Mikhail Zaidenberg, ??, Koszul, Simis, Lê Tuân Hoa, Santiago Zarzuela.

Comb. Alg. meets Alg. Comb., Halifax

Combinatorial Algebra meets Algebraic Combinatorics
Eleventh Annual Meeting
Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS
January 24 – 26, 2014
Description
The purpose of this conference is to encourage unique collaborations between combinatorial algebraists and algebraic combinatorics. This is both a regional meeting and an opportunity for researchers with similar mathematical interests but variations of focus to develop and exchange ideas
Dates and Location
The meeting will take place starting in the afternoon of Friday, January 24th, 2014 and end early in the afternoon on Sunday, January 26th, 2014 and will take place at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Invited Speakers
The following people agreed to be our main speakers.

  • Drew Armstrong (University of Miami)
  • tentative: Ezra Miller (Duke University)
  • tentative: Mike Roth (Queens University)
  • Mark Skandera (Lehigh University)
  • Julianna Tymoczko (Smith College)

In addition to the invited speakers there is opportunity for a limited number of submitted presentations. If you are interested in giving a talk, please email Sara Faridi (faridi@mathstat.dal.ca) with a title and abstract before November 15.
Online registration and application for support
Registration and application for funding for the Combinatorial Algebra meets Algebraic Combinatorics Meeting January 24-26, 2014 will be handled online. There will be a registration fee to offset the hosting costs. Details will be forthcoming.
There are some limited funds for support for travel. The application for travel support has a deadline of November 15, 2013. Please send an email to Mike Zabrocki (zabrocki@mathstat.yorku.ca). Students and post-docs should have a supervisor write an email letter of support to explain need and other sources of funding.
Organizers

  • Sara Faridi (faridi@mathstat.dal.ca)
  • Hugh Thomas (hthomas@unb.ca)
  • Mike Zabrocki (zabrocki@mathstat.yorku.ca)

Please contact any of the organizers if you have any questions about the conference.
Additional information is available and will be posted at the
website for the conference:
http://garsia.math.yorku.ca/CAAC_2014/

Berkeley: M2

From the organizers:

Dear Macaulay2 user,
We are organizing a Macaulay2 workshop, from Monday, January 6, 2014 through Friday, January 10, 2014 with Sunday, January 5 and Saturday, January 11 serving as the travel days. The workshop will be at the University of California, Berkeley, in Berkeley, CA. Activities will start first thing Monday morning (possibly Sunday night). Our main funding source for this workshop is the National Science Foundation.
The purpose of the workshop is to bring Macaulay2 developers together with those who would like to share or develop their skills at writing packages for Macaulay2 and those interested in developing the corresponding mathematical algorithms. Some examples of projects from past workshops can be viewed at the links at the end of this email. There is ongoing work on many of the packages described there, and we hope that a few teams will propose new projects and work on them at this workshop as well.
Attendance at this workshop is by invitation only — based on a brief application — and all who are interested are encouraged to apply. We anticipate financial support for approximately 20-30 people. We strive to include both experienced Macaulay2 developers and people who want to gain experience in Macaulay2 — there is no minimum amount of experience that is required in order to apply!
If you would like to attend, please apply as soon as possible at the following webpage:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGRwZUdJWE9HZWdkdjBrMWpYVWhoVUE6MA#gid=0
Your application should include:
1. information about what projects/algorithms you would like to work on, and what you have done in the past. (This is the most important piece — please put some thought into this and be as specific as possible),
2. a good estimate of travel expenses, and whether you would require financial support for housing and meals (when available), and if you will be willing to share a room. (Rooms may be in limited supply; if additional single rooms are available, and you want one, we may ask you to pay any additional cost).
3. your current institution and rank, and if you are a graduate student, your advisor’s name.
Applications are due by 11:59pm on Monday, September 30, 2013. We plan to allocate funds to participants by Friday, October 11, 2013.
A few other pieces of information you may need:
1. Please commit to being present for the entire workshop.
2. You will need to bring your laptop with Macaulay2 on it to the workshop.
Sincerely,
Sonja Mapes,
Frank Moore, and
David Swinarski,
the organizers

Hanoi

There will be a conference on “Commutative Algebra and its interaction to Algebraic Geometry and Combinatorics” in Hanoi, December 16-20, 2013.
The aim of the Conference is to present recent developments in Commutative Algebra and its interaction in Algebraic Geometry and Combinatorics. There will be also discussion on how to promote mathematics in Vietnam.
Host institutions:

  • Institute of Mathematics Hanoi
  • Vietnam Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics

Organisation committee: N. T. Cuong (Hanoi), N. V. Dung (Hanoi), D. Eisenbud (Berkeley), S. Goto (Tokyo), J. Herzog (Essen), L. T. Hoa (Hanoi)
Visit the conference site for more details: http://vie.math.ac.vn/CA-2013/

Dan Laksov, 1940–2013

We are saddened to report that Dan Laksov, Norwegian algebraist and algebraic geometer, passed away on 25 October 2013. Laksov earned his PhD at MIT in 1972, as a student of Steven Kleiman, and held positions at Stockholm University, the Institute Mittag-Leffler, Uppsala University and KTH. He worked in such areas as the Schubert calculus, determinantal schemes, Weierstrass points, syzygies, and Hilbert schemes. More information: Wikipedia (Swedish), MGP, MathSciNet. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.

CA-AG in Columbia, SC

The University of South Carolina will host “Commutative Algebra — Algebraic Geometry in the Southeast” in Columbia, SC, November 8 –10, 2013. The conference will last from 3:30 on Friday, Novemebr 8, 2013 until noon on Sunday, November 10. There will be nine lectures, a poster session, and plenty of mathematical conversation. Graduate students and recent graduates are strongly urged to present a poster in the poster session.
Current speakers include:

  • Neil Epstein (George Mason University),
  • Angela Gibney (University of Georgia),
  • Robin Hartshorne (University of California — Berkeley),
  • Craig Huneke (University of Virginia),
  • Ezra Miller (Duke University),
  • Joseph Rabinoff (Georgia Institute of Technology)
  • Kirsten Wickelgren (Georgia Institute of Technology)

For more information, see the conference web page.

Postdocs at Edinburgh

Applications are invited for two positions of Postdoctoral Research Fellow in homological algebra and algebraic geometry in the School of Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh. The posts are available from 1st April 2014 and 1st August 2014 respectively, or a mutually agreed date, for a 36 months fixed term contract.
The positions are funded from the EPSRC grant “The Homological Minimal Model Program” of Dr. Michael Wemyss, and the ERC grant “Wall-crossing and birational geometry” of Dr. Arend Bayer, for which there are already outline proposals. Candidates will have a wide range of possible directions in which they could contribute, and in addition they will also be encouraged to pursue their own, and newly arising, research questions.
The appointee will join a thriving algebra and geometry group in Edinburgh, and will become a member of the Hodge Institute. The starting salary will be in the range of £30,424 – £36,298, depending on experience.
For more details, including on how to apply, see
http://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/jobs/pdra9
The closing date is December 13, 5pm.
Informal enquiries are encouraged; please contact m.wemyss@ed.ac.uk or arend.bayer@ed.ac.uk.

Combinatorial Structures in Geometry, Osnabrück

The Opening Colloquium of the DFG Research Training Group “Combinatorial Structures in Geometry” at the University of Osnabrück will be held Friday, 1st November, 2013. The Colloquium will feature talks by Bernd Sturmfels (University of California, Berkeley), Anita Schöbel (Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen), and Peter Gritzmann (Technische Universität, München).
For more information, see the web page for the Colloquium.