Conference: Young Geometric Group Theory XII

This award will provide partial support for U.S.-based participants in “Young Geometric Group Theory XII”, a conference which will be held in Bristol, U.K. from April 8 to April 12, 2024. The Young Geometric Group Theory conference series is the largest annual conference in geometric group theory, and unique among similar events for being primarily aimed at graduate students and early career researchers. The purpose of the conference is to expose early career researchers to cutting edge research in the field, provide them opportunities to share their work, and to facilitate new collaborations. The conference includes mini-courses by established experts, plenary talks by selected senior and early career researchers, lighting talks and a poster session for participants, small-group informal discussions, and panel discussions, which will focus on career opportunities as well as equity, diversity and inclusion. Participating in a conference in this series may be transformative for a young researcher’s career, and NSF support makes attendance accessible for U.S.-based participants. The mini-courses for this conference are Cubical Geometry by Mark Hagen, Convergence Groups, Three-Manifolds and Anosov-Like Actions by Kathryn Mann, and Analytic/Topological Obstructions to Coarse Embeddings by Romain Tessera. Each of these lectures, along with four senior plenary talks will present an overview of the topic and expose participants to tools and recent developments in the field. Additionally, four plenary talks by early career researchers will broaden the scope of the conference and present new developments in the field from researchers closer to the participants in career stage. More information can be found on the conference’s website: https://sites.google.com/view/yggt2024 This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.