This Presidential Young Investigator Award supports the research of Professor John Stembridge of the University of Michigan. Dr. Stembridge's research plan involves the relationship between algebraic combinatorics and the theory of group representations, as well as other studies that bring the techniques of combinatorics to bear on problems in more distant branches of mathematics. This research falls in the broad category of combinatorics, which is one of the most active fields in today's mathematics. Fundamentally, combinatorics represents a systematization of the very first of all mathematical activities, counting. In its modern development, however, combinatorics has gone beyond just counting to make use of a wide variety of advanced mathematical techniques, and although its roots go back several centuries, the field has had an explosive development in the past few decades because of its importance in communications and information technology.
