This collaborative award is for partial support of the annual conference on operator theory (Great Plains Operator Theory Seminar (GPOTS)) for academic years 2007-2008. These conferences were first organized in 1981, and have been an annual event since that time. The focus of this conference series is dynamic, focusing each year on important new developments and on exciting open problems to stimulate the operator community, especially new researchers in the early part of their careers. A review of the speaker list from past years shows that we have consistently attracted important workers in the subject, including many leaders from around the world. We believe that one reason for this attraction is that the conference has stayed topical, always focusing on high impact areas. For example, now for 2007 and 2008 the focus includes: (1) Classification of C*-algebras, (2) Operator algebra theory directly related to free probability theory, (3) Subfactors in von Neumann algebra theory and applications, (4) Nonselfadjoint operator theory, (5) The Kadison-Singer Extension Problem and applications, and (6) Operator spaces and applications.
