This grant supports the Texas Algebraic Geometry Symposium (TAGS). TAGS is a weekend regional meeting held each spring since 2005, hosted in turn by Rice University, the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University. The workshop brings together many senior mathematicians from Texas and neighboring states. Although many participating institutions have Algebraic Geometry seminars that run through the academic year, the audience at each location is small. TAGS provides regional concentration benefits: we have many speakers in a short time who can reach many listeners in one place. We aim to bring a diverse collection of excellent speakers who are doing cutting-edge research across the many subfields of Algebraic Geometry. Background talks are given for the benefit of students and young researchers; there is a poster session for graduate students to afford them both feedback from and exposure to experts.
Algebraic geometry is a broad field of mathematics concerned with the study of solutions to systems of polynomial equations. It has amply documented connections to many areas of mathematics (number theory symplectic geometry, representation theory, mathematical physics, etc.), and its applications reverberate in a variety of contexts (robotics, coding theory, complexity theory, etc.). Conferences like TAGS help algebraic geometers stay abreast of current developments in this rapidly-evolving area of mathematics.
(TAGS) aims to disseminate cutting-edge research, encourage collaboration with and among senior algebraic geometers, and both educate junior mathematicians (graduate students and recent Ph. D.'s) and give them opportunities to promote their own work. TAGS is the only conference in algebraic geometry in Texas and its neighboring states. The Texas Algebraic Geometry Symposium (TAGS) 2011 took place at Rice University between April 22nd and April 24th. By all accounts, it was a successful conference. We had six research level talks spanning a broad swath of algebraic geometry (a large discipline of mathematics with well-documented applications in areas such as cryptography and information transmission). As part of our training and development activities, we had two instructional talks for young researchers, and a poster session to afford graduate students and recent Ph. D.'s an opportunity to report on their latest research. We documented the specifics of conference in the following website: www.math.rice.edu/~hassett/conferences/TAGS11.html All told, we had 70 registered participants. Of these, 39 came from the core participating institutions (Rice, Texas A&M, and Austin). Of the remaining participants, several came from institutions in the geographical area served by TAGS, including the University of Houston, Sam Houston State University, the University of Texas at San Antonio, Texas Christian University, the University of North Texas, and the University of Oklahoma. In a promising sign of the expanding influence of TAGS, we also had participants from Brigham Young University, Duke University, the Ohio State University, Penn State University, Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Miami, the University of Missouri, the University of Nebraska, the University of Utah, Washington University at St. Louis, and the University of Zurich.
