The Georgia Topology Conference is an annual event which has established itself as a mainstay of the American topology community over the past 50 years. It takes place at the University of Georgia in Athens in the Spring or Summer. The focus of the conference is a subfield of topology which varies from year to year; recent topics have included three- and four-dimensional manifolds, knot theory, contact and symplectic topology, and the calculus of functors. Each year, the conference gathers a core of senior researchers together with a larger group of young mathematicians, mostly recent Ph. D.'s and graduate students. Participation by members of under-represented groups is encouraged and funded; in particular the speakers and organizers generally include several women. The conference format is designed both to help disseminate important new research and to provide a formative experience for early-career mathematicians.
Broadly speaking, topology is the study of the properties of a space (such as the universe that we live in) which are preserved when the space is continuously deformed. The subject has many connections to physics and has applications to such topics as robotics and image analysis. This conference is designed to serve as a venue for new approaches to fundamental questions in topology and to facilitate the career development of young mathematicians working in the field.
More information is available on the conference website: www.ams.org/meetings/calendar/2011_may18-22_athens.html
