Midwest Geometry Conference hosted by WUSTL

The University will host an international gathering of mathematicians when the Midwest Geometry Conference convenes May 30-June 1.

The conference, which has been held at Midwestern institutions annually since 1991, is sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the University.

Registration is free, and participation includes lunches May 31 and June 1 as well as an evening banquet May 31.

The conference will comprise four half-day sessions. On the night of May 31, there will be a panel discussion on future directions and problems in the field.

Presentation topics include three-manifolds, hyperbolic geometry and geometric group theory; geometry, analysis and probability on discrete groups; minimal submanifolds; and surface immersions in space.

While the conference has a Midwestern flair, participants from the Middle East, Italy, Germany, Korea and Brazil will be in attendance. There will be about 50 in all, including graduate students.

“These topics are the current hot ones in geometry, and many of the problems are very old, going back 100 years or more, and very stimulating,” said Gary R. Jensen, Ph.D., professor of mathematics in Arts & Sciences.

Since 1995, the NSF has funded these conferences with joint three-year grants that cover about two-thirds of the costs. Jensen wrote the first such joint proposal; Larry Peterson, Ph.D., a mathematician at the University of North Dakota, wrote the current one. Washington University last hosted the conference in June 1995.

“The conference is a valuable networking opportunity, as well as a great venue for dialogue on mathematical concepts and controversies and the direction of mathematics,” Jensen said. “The speakers are the leaders of their fields. Keeping it Midwestern allows people in neighboring states to attend inexpensively.”

The Washington University conference organization committee comprises: Jensen; Quo-Shin Chi, Ph.D., professor of mathematics, who was involved in organizing the very first conference in 1991; and Renato Feres, Ph.D., and Rachel Roberts, Ph.D., both associate professors of mathematics.

For more information, go online to math.wustl.edu/MGC2003.