West-coast algebraic topology summer school on the homotopy theory

 of moduli spaces
at the University of Oregon, August 9-14.

The summer school is aimed at graduate students and post-docs, 

though all are welcome.  We  have support from the National Science 

Foundation  for roughly thirty student/post-doc participants, including

local  accommodations and partial reimbursement of travel expenses.  
The  Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences will support 
travel by  Canadian students, as funds permit.

Scientific plan: The topic of the summer school will be the homotopy  
theoretic approach to moduli spaces.  Particular focus will be on 
approaches to Mumford's conjecture (Madsen-Weiss' theorem), the 
study of cobordism categories, and to other related results and 
recent developments.

Format:  The basic model is that of some participants preparing and 
giving lectures which have been planned in advance by the
scientific committee,  a model which has been employed successfully
elsewhere.   We also plan to limit the number of lectures each day  and
then use the additional time for activities to complement lectures and
engage participants in a full range of ideas.  Some possible activities
could be: problem sessions which in particular can emphasize calculations
related to the main narrative of lectures; smaller lectures which could
fill in background for less experienced participants or go further into
recent advances for more experienced participants; reading assignments
which could be done in between an introductory lecture and a more detailed
lecture based on a paper.

Scientific committee: Soren Galatius, Paolo Salvatore and Oscar
Randall-Williams, Johannes Ebert, David Ayala and Nathalie Wahl.
Organizing committee: Alejandro Adem, Ralph Cohen and Dev Sinha.
Sponsoring organizations: the National Science Foundation, the University
of Oregon, Stanford University, and the Pacific Institute for the
Mathematical Sciences.

There will also be a workshop on operator algebras and conformal field
theory, led by Andre Henriques, at the University of Oregon in the
following  week. We should add that Oregon in the summertime is a 
wonderful place to visit. 

Please register at the page:
http://www.pims.math.ca/scientific-event/100808-wcatss

Graduate students and post-docs can apply for partial travel reimbursement
and room & board (dormitory) for the week.  You must apply by May 1 to be

considered for support.  Also have your PhD advisor, department chair or 

program director send a short (one paragraph) e-mail  which addresses the 

following:

- that you are a student/postdoc in their department in good standing.
- the relevance of the summer school to your research, and your ability to 

take advantage of the program.
- whether you should be considered for a standard travel allotment (because 

you may have some local funds available) or should be considered for a 

larger allotment.

Please have this person send an e-mail directly to [log in to unmask].  

E-mail which arrives by May 1 will ensure that you get full consideration for 

support.

Faculty can reserve the room & board plan.  We ask that all likely participants 

register even  if you do not require any of these, so we can plan (and report) 

appropriately.

Questions  can be directed to Dev Sinha ([log in to unmask]).