This project supports three years of MIT Talbot workshops. This is an annual event organized by graduate students. The 2014 MIT Talbot Workshop took place March 16-22 in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Professor Marc Levine of the Universitaet Duisburg-Essen led the workshop, which was entitled Motivic Homotopy Theory. Since their initiation in 2004, the MIT Talbot Workshops have provided a unique opportunity for some thirty young researchers - graduate students and postdocs - to spend a week with an expert in their field in an intimate and informal setting. Each workshop is on a different topic, chosen for its broad interest and currency. Qualities of clarity, leadership, and generosity are important in the selection of mentor. Numerous strong research relationships have had their origin in these workshops over the years.
Motivic homotopy theory, the subject of the 2014 workshop, is a vibrant and rapidly expanding research area with origins in the solution of the Milnor conjecture about algebraic K-theory by Vladimir Voevodsky (who won the Fields Medal for this work). It has attracted an increasing number of participants from both algebraic geometry and algebraic topology, because of its intrinsic beauty and its proven power as a tool for attacking problems in algebraic K-theory and, more recently, in homotopy theory. It provided an ideal subject for the Talbot Workshop, bringing together very bright and motivated young researchers from distinct fields in a context which encouraged deep learning and collaboration, under the inspired leadership of Marc Levine, one who has made profound contributions to the subject.
The website http://math.mit.edu/conferences/talbot/ contains descriptions of and reports resulting from all eleven MIT Talbot Workshops.
