Goals of the East Coast Operator Algebras Symposium (ECOAS): The ECOAS conference series has several objectives. One is to help young researchers in the area of operator algebras broaden their acquaintance with the field. Another is to help acquaint them with senior researchers in operator algebra theory (among them possible future colleagues, mentors and collaborators). With these goals in mind, the ECOAS series places a heavy emphasis on attracting young researchers to the meetings and giving them opportunities to present their work and otherwise interact with established figures. In the conferences in the series so far, over half of the participants and a substantial number of the speakers have been students or postdoctoral fellows. The ECOAS meetings give all participants, senior and junior, the opportunity to learn first-hand the work of others. Because of the breadth of operator algebra theory, this is an important function. To ensure participants can acquaint themselves with work outside their immediate areas of specialization, the meetings are organized with no parallel sessions. To fit the meetings into a weekend format, to keep the quality of talks high, and to allow time for discussions, at most a dozen talks are scheduled per meeting.
The meetings give young researchers the chance to meet senior researchers. The relatively modest scale of the meetings (compared to national or international meetings, for example) allows them to network with senior researchers and with one another, thereby helping foster future collaborations and providing the sort of exposure that is often crucial to a successful job search. Thus the conference plays an important role in helping young researchers establish themselves in the field.
This award supported the eighth annual East Coast Operator Algebras Symposium (ECOAS) held at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire on the 23rd and 24th of October, 2010. There were thirteen invited speakers including some of the leading researchers in the field as well as some very talented junior people. Speakers and participants were from all over the country and Europe. The conference was broadly and aggressively advertised. The total number of participants exceeded seventy and the talks covered many of the most important current issues in the field. NSF funds were used exclusively to find participant travel to Hanover and to cover lodging costs. Conferences such as ECOAS are essential to the advancement of knowledge in the field. It allows researchers to be aware of cutting edge results long before publication. This is especially important to younger researchers and ECOAS makes it a priority to attach young researchers, and especially graduate students, for this reason. This conference was very successful in this regard as there were over twenty gradaute students and over twenty junior faculty amongst the participants. There were 12 female participants including two of the invited speakers. Additional details -- including some of the speakers slides -- may be found at the conference web site: http://math.dartmouth.edu/ecoas/
