Research Training Group in Geometry, Topology and Operator Algebras
About the RTG
Our Research Training Group (RTG) in Geometry, Topology and Operator Algebras is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation EMSW21 program. The group's activities include:
- Postdoctoral fellowships. Three-year postdoctoral positions funded jointly by NSF and the university, with a reduced teaching load of one course per semester, support for summer research in each of the first two years, and additional funds for travel and other research-related expenses. Sikimeti Ma'u is a past postdoc. Current RTG postdocs Jonathan Dahl and Kate Poirier arrived in Fall 2010. Current RTG postdoc Matt Gill arrived in Fall 2012 and Kenji Kozai joins us in Fall 2013.
- Graduate student fellowships. Fellowship support is available for a core group of 8 to 10 graduate students whose research interests belong to the areas covered by the RTG. RTG students normally receive six semesters of research fellowship support, and are expected to teach two semesters. Eligibility is limited to US citizens or permanent residents.
- Seminars. The RTG runs a differential geometry seminar, a mirror symmetry seminar, a symplectic geometry seminar and a topology seminar. Each meets weekly or biweekly for an hour, featuring research talks by students, faculty and outside visitors. In addition, there are a student geometry seminar and a student topology seminar.
Summer programs
The RTG has run summer programs for both graduate students and undergraduate students.
Morse theory (2010)
String topology, compactified moduli spaces and algebraic structures (2011)
Geometry group theory for graduate students (2012)
Mapping class groups of surfaces (2010)
Geometry group theory for undergraduates (2012)
Contact and symplectic geometry (2012)
Homological algebra (2012)
Symplectic embeddings (2013)
Computational algebraic geometry (2013)
Homogeneous spaces (2013)
Faculty members associated with the RTG
The faculty members affiliated with the group are listed below with brief descriptions of their research interests.
Ian Agol works on low-dimensional topology and geometric group theory.
Denis Auroux works on mirror symmetry and Heegard-Floer homology.
Robert Bryant works on differential geometry and exterior differential systems.
Michael Hutchings works on contact geometry and symplectic geometry.
Rob Kirby works on four-dimensional manifolds.
John Lott works on differential geometry and geometric analysis.
Peter Teichner works on four-dimensional manifolds and topological quantum field theory.
Constantin Teleman works on Gromov-Witten invariants and topological quantum field theory.
Alan Weinstein works on symplectic geometry and Poisson geometry.
A former member of our group is Vaughan Jones, now at Vanderbilt University.
