Category: News Postings

We’re saddened to hear of the passing of David Kirby, who worked in commutative algebra and algebraic geometry, and is well remembered for his work on Artinian modules, Koszul complexes, and multiplicities. He died on 29 March 2009, aged 76. There is a brief notice in the Newsletter of the London Mathematical Society. Thanks to Rodney Sharp for sharing this sad news with us.

We’ve got the seven-year itch! Since our grand opening in February 2002, we’ve been proud to be the website of the commutative algebra community. The web has gone through a number of generations since then, and it’s about time commalg.org caught up with the times. We therefore present commalg.org 2.0: the quickening.
The basic look and feel of the website hasn’t changed much, but the software beneath the surface has. We’re now using WordPress, and we hope that it will allow us to make updates more easily and more often. It also produces a number of Atom feeds (see the bottom of any page, under “Syndicate”) to make following us easy.
It also lets us do nifty things like this conference calendar, which we’re very excited about. (It’s available as a webcal feed, for those of you who know what that means.)
We hope you’re as excited about the new face of commalg.org as we are. If you have any concerns or suggestions, please let us know!
Click here to read the full list of changes at commalg.org…

Tim Römer from the University of Osnabrück, Germany, writes:

…maybe it is interesting for commalg that our department is offering 2 postdoc-positions in the area of commutative algebra and algebraic topology. See [the department website] for details.

We’ve added a new feature to our people page: a map of all the commutative algebraists on our list! Five continents and dozens of countries, with fascinating distributions. If you see any problems with our data, just let us know.

We’d like to pass on the news from the Directors of AIM, IAS, IMA, IPAM, MBI, MSRI, and SAMSI that about 30 new postdoctoral positions are likely to become available soon, pending support by the NSF. The seven NSF funded Mathematical Sciences Institutes invite applications for these positions. Persons who have received a PhD from a U.S. institution in the mathematical and statistical sciences within the last 5 years and who do not have employment for the Fall of 2009 are requested to apply online at mathinstitutes.org. Offers may be made as early as April 10.

Javid Validashti has posted some photos from the recent 2nd Bluegrass Algebra Conference in Lexington. Thanks for sending them along, Javid! Go see!
added 19 March: We’re sad to hear that Jim Huckaba, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Missouri, died on Tuesday March 10. Jim was a widely respected and admired commutative algebraist. His son, Sam, works in commutative algebra as well.
The Huckaba family is establishing a memorial scholarship fund at MU. Contributions can be made by check (to University of Missouri, with a note saying it is for the “James A. Huckaba Memorial Scholarship Fund”) and sent to Carmen Chicone, Department of Mathematics, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211.

Thanks to Leslie Roberts and Tony Geramita, we’ve posted some photos from last month’s Route 81 Conference. Go see!
update: (14 Dec 2008) The organizers of the Barcelona conference on Interactions between Representation Theory and Commutative Algebra have posted some photos from the conference, including group pictures. Go see!
update: (16 Dec 2008) Thanks to Adam Van Tuyl, we’ve posted some photos from the recent CMS Winter Meeting in Ottawa. Go see!

Karl Schwede sent along these photos from last August’s conference in honor of Mel Hochster. Thanks, Karl! Go see!
Also, we learned that the TWAS (Academy of Sciences for the Developing World) Council met 9 November 2008 in Mexico City, Mexico, and announced that Prof. Vasudevan Srinivas, India, is the recipient of the TWAS 2008 Prize in Mathematics. Congratulations to Srinivas!

We received the following from Amelia Taylor and Greg Smith:

Dear Colleague:
We are excited to announce the launch of The Journal of Software for Algebra and Geometry: Macaulay 2. This new electronic-only journal is devoted to short articles on software related to research in algebra and geometry. Each article (not to exceed 3 printed pages including references) will be accompanied by the appropriate source code. The aim is to promote the development of good code for use by the mathematical research community. All articles are refereed. More information can be found at the journal website: http://j-sag.org/.
— Greg Smith and Amelia Taylor

Also, the organizers of the conference “Geometric, Homological and Combinatorial Aspects in Commutative Algebra” have posted photos from the conference at the conference website. Go see!

From Irena Swanson and Craig Huneke: The book “Integral Closure of Ideals, Rings, and Modules”, by Craig Huneke and Irena Swanson, is now available online at http://www.reed.edu/~iswanson/book.
From the AMS: HENRI CARTAN, 1904-2008
Henri Cartan, one of the outstanding mathematicians of the twentieth century, died August 13 at the age of 104. Cartan, the son of mathematician Elie Cartan, was one of the founding members of the Bourbaki group and made important contributions to many areas of mathematics, including complex analysis, algebraic topology, and homological algebra. He co-authored Homological Algebra with Samuel Eilenberg and ran the Seminaire Cartan in Paris from 1948 to 1964. Cartan was elected to more than a dozen academies in Europe, the U.S., and Japan, and received the Wolf Prize in 1980. In addition to his work in mathematics, he is also known for his efforts to promote human rights and for restoring relations between mathematicians in France and Germany after World War II. More about Cartan’s life and work is in “Interview with Henri Cartan” by Allyn Jackson in the August 1999 Notices.
Also Manuel Blickle has posted some photos from the recent conference in honor of Mel Hochster.
Update 28 August: We have learned that Masayoshi Nagata passed away on 27th August at the age of 81. Our thoughts are with his friends and family.