The Southwest Local Algebra Meeting 2013 will take place at the University of Arizona on March 2-3, 2013. This conference will facilitate interactions between students and faculty---with interests in ring theory, broadly interpreted---from institutions in the Southwest. Six speakers will deliver hour-long talks on topics within their specialty; five speakers will be local to the Southwest region, and one will be a prominent algebraist from outside the region. The lectures will be accessible to graduate students. The meeting will also feature three hour-long poster sessions in which the participating students will present their research. (More information can be found at the conference webpage: www.math.ttu.edu/~lchriste/slam2013.html.)
The study of rings, in the broadest sense, is crucial to many branches of mathematics---commutative and non-commutative geometry, group representations, number theory, coding theory, and cryptography to name a few---and touches on even more---combinatorics, homotopy theory, and statistics, for example. Algebraists in the Southwest region pursue research on a variety of topics under the umbrella of pure and applied ring theory. The geographical distances in the region are such that interactions between people at different institutions rarely happen spontaneously. The meeting will bring together students and faculty from a variety of institutions for inspiring talks and ample time for scientific interaction. One can expect that new collaborations and discoveries may result from such a meeting. About 50 participants are expected: students, young and senior faculty from Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and neighboring states. The participation of students from underrepresented minority groups, women, untenured faculty, and faculty at non-Ph.D. granting institutions is particularly encouraged.
This project consisted of a two-day meeting of algebraists at the University of Arizona in Tucson. This was the fourth annual Southwest Local Algebra Meeting (SLAM); the first three meetings took place at the University of Texas at Arlington in March 2010, New Mexico State University in March 2011, and Texas Tech University in 2012. The purpose of the meeting was to facilitate interactions between young and senior mathematicians --- with interests in ring theory, broadly interpreted --- from institutions in the Southwest. The meeting took place in the first weekend of March 2013. Six speakers delivered 50-minute talks on topics within their specialty. Five speakers were from the Southwest region. These included Paolo Mantero (University of California at Riverside), Jeff Mermin (Oklahoma State University), Klaus Lux (University of Arizona), Patrick Morandi (New Mexico State University), and Michaela Vancliff (University of Texas at Arlington). The meeting also featured a prominent algebraist from outside the region, namely Ragnar-Olaf Buchweitz (University of Toronto). Each of the speakers delivered a talk which was accessible to graduate students. The meeting also featured three hour-long poster sessions in which many of the participating graduate students presented their research. The eight posters were entitled "An action on the homology of neighborhood complexes from Cayley graphs" (Justin Hughes, Colorado State University), "The j-multiplicity of monomial ideals" (Jack Jeffries, University of Utah; Jonathan Montaño, Purdue University), "Approximation of valuations and realization of lattice-ordered groups over affine domains" (Lokendra Paudel, New Mexico State University), "A filtration of totally reflexive modules" (Denise Rangel, University of Texas at Arlington), "Associated graded rings of numerical semigroup rings" (Alessio Sammartano, Purdue University), "Completions of local Noetherian rings" (Simplice Tchamna, New Mexico State University), "An algorithmic approach to the rectifiability problem in affine 3-space" (Julio Urenda, New Mexico State University), and "Classification of star operations on k+x4k[[x]]" (Bryan White, University of New Mexico). There was also a very successful conference dinner which facilitated many further interactions between students and faculty. There were in total 36 participants, which included students, and young and senior faculty from Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and neighboring states. Participation of students from underrepresented minority groups, women, untenured faculty, and faculty at non-Ph.D. granting institutions were also present in significant numbers. Most of the NSF support was used for travel and lodging for students and faculty with limited access to travel funds. Intellectual Merit. The study of rings, in the broadest sense, is crucial to many branches of mathematics (commutative and non-commutative geometry, group representations, number theory, coding theory, and cryptography, to name a few) and touches on even more (combinatorics, homotopy theory, and statistics, for example). Algebraists in the Southwest region pursue research on a variety of topics under the umbrella of pure and applied ring theory. The geographical distances in the region are such that interactions between people at different institutions rarely happen spontaneously. The meeting brought together students and faculty from a variety of institutions for inspiring talks and ample time for scientific interaction. One can expect that new collaborations and discoveries resulted from the meeting. Broader Impact. The Southwest region is home to several non-Ph.D. granting institutions. Faculty at these institutions have limited travel funds. The relative proximity of the meeting venue and the availability of participant support offered them an opportunity to connect or reconnect with research groups in their geographical region. For students who have yet to attend their first scientific meeting, this one served as a smooth introduction to the professional circles. The modest size of the meeting helped create a relaxed atmosphere, and presentations in the poster sessions helped the graduate students break the ice and interact with faculty members from other institutions. As an outcome of such interactions, one can expect that some students landed their first invitations to speak at departmental seminars or other professional meetings.
