Colby-Bates-Bowdoin Collaborative Conference on Geometry-Topology-Group Theory

 

Bates College, Lewiston, Maine

January 9-10, 2012

 

Organizer:

     

       Peter N. Wong (pwong@bates.edu)

 

Schedule:

 

Monday, Jan. 9

 

9:30-10:15       Nic Koban, UMaine-Farmington

The sigma invariants of free-by-free abelian groups

 

10:15-10:30                     Coffee break

 

10:30-11:15     Dessislava Kochloukova, UNICAMP Brazil

Fixed points of automorphisms of generalized Thompson’s groups

 

11:30-12:15     Zoran Sunic, Texas A & M U.

Virtual endomorphisms and self-similar groups

 

12:15 – 1:45                          LUNCH

 

1:45-2:30         Scott Taylor, Colby College

Recent progress on the cabling conjecture

 

2:45-3:30         Dirk Schuetz, Durham U., U.K.

Configuration spaces of closed linkages

 

3:30-4:00                         Coffee break

 

4:00-4:45         Jen Taback, Bowdoin College

Metric properties of Diestel-Leader groups

 

Tuesday, Jan. 10

 

9:30-10:15       Alex Suciu, Northeastern U.

Sigma invariants of hyperplane arrangements

 

10:30-11:15     Keith Jones, Trinity College

for actions on trees for semi-direct products (some examples)

 

 

 

 

Rooms 207 and 209, Hathorn Hall

 

Sponsored by the Mellon Foundation