This is a proposal for partial participant support for the Third East Coast Operator Algebras Symposium (ECOAS) to be held at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia on October 1 and 2, 2005. Funding is for full support for graduate students and postdocs and partial support for speakers and other participants. It is expected to have about 80-90 participants, including 30-40 graduate students and 10-15 postdocs. ECOAS 2005 will be the third meeting of a conference series on operator algebras, noncommutative geometry and applications. Operator algebras have evolved in the last 30 years to one of the most exciting areas of mathematics. Within the subject, areas of very active research include Connes' non-commutative geometry, Voiculescu's free probability, quantum dynamics following the work of Arveson and Powers, the theory of subfactors following the work of Jones and Popa, and others. Operator algebras techniques have also led to discoveries in a priori unrelated fields of mathematics and physics, including for instance the discovery of Jones' knot invariant via techniques from the theory of subfactors, and the work of Connes and Kreimer on renormalization theory. Major progress on the Novikov conjecture has been made through noncommutative geometrical methods developed by operator algebraists.
