The Massachusetts Institute of Technology will host a conference, October 6--8, 2012, celebrating the mathematical impact and legacy of the late Daniel Quillen. The conference will bring together researchers in the many areas of current actvity that Quillen either founded or profoundly influenced, including algebraic K-theory, cyclic homology, rational homotopy theory, abstract homotopy theory, group cohomology, and modular representation theory. There well be thirteen main talks, leaving ample time for interaction among participants. The diverse topics covered by this conference are united by the vision of their creator, and we anticipate that the conference will result in fruitful collaborations as they reconnect. Every effort will be made to bring together researchers otherwise separated by geography, age and rank, and field.
Daniel Quillen (1940--2011) was one of the of the greatest American mathematicians. A winner of the Fields Medal (the highest award given in the field) in 1978, Quillen had a deep and unique insight into the nature of mathematics. He established the foundations of two major branches of mathematics now being pursued by hundreds of mathematicans around the world today - algebraic K-theory and abstract homotopy theory - and profoundly influenced the development of several other fields. With some two hundred participants expected, this three-day conference will hear from leading researchers in these areas and bring them together with young and aspiring mathematicians from the US and abroad. A significant portion of the grant will guarantee that otherwise unfunded or underfunded young researchers can attend and to ensure the participation of women and traditionally underrepresented minority populations. The accessibility of the conference will be augmented by the creation of a web page which will distribute the contents of the presentations on the internet. http://math.mit.edu/quillen/
A mathematics conference was held honoring the memory of Daniel Quillen, a brilliant American mathematician whose perspectives shaped a generation of research in several distinct fields of research. The conference was held at MIT, on October 6-8, 2012. The subject matters of the conference included algebraic K-theory and cyclic homology, rational homotopy theory, chromatic homotopy theory, abstract homotopy theory, group cohomology and modular representation theory, all fields of mathematics that felt the profound influence of Quillen's innovations. The conference consisted of 14 talks given by renowned researchers from around the world, representing many of the target subjects of the workshop. These speakers were Dennis Sullivan (Stony Brook), Thomas Goodwillie (Brown), Joachim Cuntz (Muenster), Lars Hesselholt (Nagoya), Michael Hopkins (Harvard), Luchezar Avramov (U. Nebraska), Eric Friedlander (USC), Birgit Richter (Hamburg), Ulrike Tilmann (Oxford), Graeme Segal (Oxford), Douglas Ravenel (Rochester), Matthai Varghese (Adelaide), and Christophe Soulé (IHES). Each day had several discussion periods scheduled with the idea that participants could use these times to discuss research ideas and form collaborations. In addition an extended period was set aside in the afternoons for impromptu presentations and talks in several reserved classrooms adjoining the conference facilities. The conference was attended by 156 registered participants. While most of the participants were domestic, there were a significant international presence with researchers coming from Germany, France, U.K., Japan, China, India, Iran, Israel, and Australia. In addition to the registered participants, there were numerous local researchers from Boston-area universities who attended the conference. NSF funds contributed to partially or completely cover the travel costs of 50 participants, including speakers. The majority of travel fund awardees were graduate or postdoctoral young researchers. To further increase the accessibility of the subject matter of the conference, the talks were video recorded, and have been digitally disseminated at the url [INSERT URL HERE].
