The conference "Conformal Geometry and Riemann Surfaces -- A conference in Honor of Professor Ravi S. Kulkarni" will be held at Queens College of the City University of New York, 65-30 Kiseena Blvd, Flushing, NY 11367, on October 25, 26, and 27, 2013. The subject of Riemann surfaces is one of the most fundamental areas in mathematics. Mathematicians in the 19th century extensively worked on Riemann surfaces from the point of view of algebraic curves, often by concretely representing them as a branched covering of the Riemann sphere, using a meromorphic function. The idea of analytic continuation of germs of holomorphic functions had also led to the study of Riemann surfaces. Riemann's famous 1851 dissertation inaugurated the study of geometrical methods in function theory. Here, one finds the idea of a Riemann surface as a covering surface with a system of local uniformizing parameters. The publication of Weyl's 1913 classic began the formal study of Riemann surfaces, where a Riemann surface was understood to be a connected complex manifold of one complex dimension. At present, the subject of Riemann surfaces is at the heart of many important branches of modern mathematics. It intersects with a broad range of fields, like geometric function theory, hyperbolic manifolds, discontinuous groups, complex dynamics, and more recently, string theory in particle physics.
The main goal of our conference is to bring together leading researchers in conformal geometry, Riemann surfaces, and related fields, who will talk on the present state of research in their specialized areas, and also give a broad overview of how their research is related with other areas of mathematics. An important purpose of this conference is to honor the many fundamental contributions of Ravi Kulkarni to a wide range of mathematical areas closely related to discontinuous groups, conformal geometry, and Riemann surfaces. The aim is to explore some of the key developments in the areas related to, or directly influenced by Kulkarni's broad research contributions. We expect this to be a very stimulating conference, with ample scope for mathematical interactions. All invited speakers are outstanding experts in their fields of expertise. They will give an excellent overview of the many areas that interact with conformal geometry and Riemann surfaces. There will be about 70 participants, who will immensely benefit from the wide range of talks. The City University of New York has a lively and very active group of researchers working in Riemann surfaces and various aspects of conformal geometry. We are especially interested in inviting graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from CUNY Graduate Center, New York University, Columbia University, SUNY at StonyBrook, Rutgers (Newark), and Yale University. In particular, we want to invite recent Ph.Ds and young assistant professors from all CUNY Colleges (Senior and Community Colleges). Many of them are seriously interested to continue research. This conference will give them a very good opportunity to interact with other mathematicians, and get an exposure to some important research problems. We expect this conference to be of great help for young mathematicians who are interested in Riemann surfaces and related topics, and who also aspire to be future specialists.
We used this NSF award to organize the conference "Conformal Geometry and Riemann Surfaces - A conference in Honor of Professor Ravi S.~Kulkarni." It was held at Queens College of the City University of New York, 65-30 Kissena Blvd, Flushing, NY 11367, on October 25, 26, and 27 of 2013. In the 19th century, mathematicians extensively worked on Riemann surfaces from the point of view of algebraic curves, often by concretely representing them as a branched covering of the Riemann sphere, using a meromorphic function. The idea of analytic continuation of germs of holomorphic functions had also led to the study of Riemann surfaces. Riemann's famous 1851 Goettingen dissertation "Grundlagen Fur eine allgemeine Theorie der Functionen einer veraenderlichen complexen Groesse" inaugurated the study of geometrical methods in function theory. Here, one already finds the idea of a Riemann surface as a covering surface with a system of local uniformizing parameters. Later, the publication of Hermann Weyl's classic "Die Idee der Riemannschen Flaeche," began the formal study of Riemann surfaces. The subject of conformal geometry and Riemann surfaces is unquestionably one of the most fundamental areas in mathematics and has many applications to other fields, like hyperbolic manifolds, discontinuous groups, complex dynamics, and, more recently, string theory in particle physics. The principal aim of this conference was to bring together eminent mathematicians who are leaders in their fields, to give an idea of the recent interesting developments in conformal geometry and Riemann surfaces and related areas. This conference also highlighted some of the important research problems in these fields. An important purpose of this conference was to honor the many fundamental contributions of Ravi Kulkarni to a wide range of mathematical areas closely related to discontinuous groups, conformal geometry, and Riemann surfaces. The conference webpage is at: http://fsw01.bcc.cuny.edu/zhe.wang/RKC.html. The conference explored some of the key developments in the area of conformal geometry and Riemann surfaces and conformal dynamical systems. It was a very stimulating conference, and was very beneficial for many young mathematicians and PhD students. The talks generated lots of interactions among the participants.There were 20 outstanding experts in their fields of expertise who delivered extremely interesting lectures. There were three invited speakers from Israel, Germany, and Japan. All invited speakers gave excellent overviews of the many areas that interact with conformal geometry and Riemann surfaces and complex dynamical systems.The video tapes of their lectures are available on the webpage for the general mathematical public. Here is the link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/course/id906469030 Here is the list of members of the organizing committee: Wallace Goldberg (Queens College, CUNY), Yunping Jiang (Queens College, CUNY and The Graduate Center, CUNY), Blendi Koroveshi (Queens College, CUNY), Sudeb Mitra (Queens College, CUNY and The Graduate Center, CUNY), Zhe Wang (Bronx Community College, CUNY). The scientific committee consisted of: Jozef Dodziuk (Queens College, CUNY and The Graduate Center, CUNY), Frederick Gardiner (The Graduate Center, CUNY), Linda Keen (Lehman College, CUNY and The Graduate Center, CUNY), Yunping Jiang (Queens College, CUNY and The Graduate Center, CUNY). The City University of New York has a lively and very active group of researchers working in the areas of Riemann surfaces, Kleinian groups, Teichmueller theory, complex dynamical systems, and various aspects of conformal geometry. An important aspect of this conference was the involvement of several graduate students and postdocs from CUNY Graduate Center, New York University, Columbia University, SUNY at StonyBrook, Rutgers (Newark), and Yale University. In particular, we invited young assistant professors from all CUNY Colleges (Senior and Community Colleges). Many of them are seriously interested to continue their research. This conference gave them an excellent exposure to the current research activities. It also gave them an opportunity to interact with other mathematicians. Our conference was of great help for young mathematicians who are interested in these areas of mathematics and who also aspire to be future specialists.
