This award is made as part of the FY 2013 Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships Program. Each of the fellowships supports a research and training project at a host institution in the mathematical sciences, including applications to other disciplines, under the mentorship of a sponsoring scientist. The title of the project for this fellowship to Andrew Sanders is "Surface Group Representations, Higgs Bundles, and Special Surfaces." The host institution for the fellowship is the University of Illinois-Chicago, and the sponsoring scientist is Dr. David Dumas.