This award will support activities during a planned "Emphasis Year in Dynamical Systems" at Northwestern University during the 2010-11 academic year. The emphasis year, funded in part by the Northwestern Department of Mathematics Department, will feature both long- and short-term visiting scholars, postdoctoral positions in dynamical systems, and the annual Midwest Dynamical Systems Conference.
The semester's programs are specifically organized around the research areas of ergodic theory, discrete group actions, Hamiltonian dynamics, and smooth and geometric dynamics, with an organizing theme of "Trends in Dynamics for the Coming Decade." This theme will guide the events of the year and will be the title and focus of a concluding major conference to be held in Spring 2011. The funding will be used to support both visitors to the department and participants in the conference, increasing collaboration within and across disciplines. Much of the funding will be directed to young mathematicians, particularly postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and junior faculty, who do not have their own sources of support.
The 2010--2011 academic year was designated an Emphasis Year in Dynamical Systems at Northwestern, and the grant funded numerous activities. The scientific programs were organized around the main research areas of the permanent faculty at Northwestern University: Ergodic Theory, Discrete Group Actions, Hamiltonian Dynamics, and Smooth and Geometric Dynamics. The organizing theme was ``Trends in Dynamics for the Coming Decade.'' The culmination of the activities was a major conference titled ``Trends in Dynamics'' heldin spring 2011 and fully funded by the grant. This conference brought together mathematicians from all branches of dynamics, drawing together the different (both mathematical and geographic) strains, and it was organized by mathematicians from all three major universities in the Chicago area. The grant was also used to provide partial funding for the ``Midwest Dynamical Systems Conference''held in fall 2012, for the ``Workshop on Discrete Methods in Ergodic Theory'' held in winter 2012, short and long term visitors, and numerous seminar activities.The NSF support significantly broadened the scope and impact of the emphasis year and its activities.These activities were successful in facilitating collaboration between researchers across the different research areas, increasing breadth of graduate student knowledge through exposure to leading researchers in dynamics, and in promoting a lively research atmosphere.Much of the funding directed to young mathematicians, particularly postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and junior faculty,who do not have their own sources of support.
