Dear Colleagues,
The 39th Annual Workshop in Geometric Topology will be held online June 6-8, 2022. The featured speaker will be Jessica Purcell of Monash University, who will give a series of three one-hour lectures on using
hyperbolic geometry as a tool to study 3-manifolds and knot theory.
Participants are invited to contribute talks of 20 minutes. Contributed talks need not be directly related to the topic of the principal lectures. Title and abstracts must be submitted by
May 6. Talks will be selected in a way that provides a balanced collection of topics and respects the historical traditions of the workshop. Earlier responses may be given some preference. Applicants will be notified whether their talk has been
accepted by May 23.
Full details, including registration and information about submitting titles and abstracts for contributed talks, can be found at the conference web site at
https://faculty.tcu.edu/gfriedman/GTW2022/
The Workshops in Geometric Topology are a series of informal annual research conferences that have been held since 1984. In non-pandemic years, the workshops currently rotate among Brigham Young University, Calvin College, Colorado College,
Texas Christian University, and the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. Each workshop features a series of three lectures by one principal speaker, providing a substantial introduction to an area of current research in geometric topology. Participants are
invited to contribute short talks on their own research, and there is ample time set aside each day for informal interactions between participants. Funding for the workshop series is currently provided by a grant from the National Science Foundation (DMS-1764311).
Abstract of Dr. Purcell’s Main Lectures
For over four decades, hyperbolic geometry has been used as a tool to study and classify 3-manifolds. Hyperbolic 3-manifolds are known to satisfy important rigidity results, so that hyperbolic structures are unique or well-behaved. Thus
hyperbolic invariants, such as volume, areas of embedded surfaces, and lengths of short geodesics, become topological 3-manifold invariants. However, many of the 3-manifolds that arise in geometric topology, such as examples from knot theory, dynamics, or
piecewise linear topology, are constructed in ways that do not obviously reflect their geometry. Given a 3-manifold with a combinatorial or topological description, it can often be difficult to relate that description to hyperbolic geometry of the manifold.
In Dr. Purcell’s talks, she will survey some of the ways of relating hyperbolic geometry to combinatorics and topology in dimension three, and some applications.
Workshop Organizers:
Fredric Ancel, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Greg Friedman, Texas Christian University
Craig Guilbault, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Molly Moran, Colorado College
Nathan Sunukjian, Calvin College
Eric Swenson, Brigham Young University
Frederick Tinsley, Colorado College
Gerard Venema, Calvin College
Please contact Greg Friedman ([log in to unmask]) if you have any questions.
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Greg Friedman
Professor and Department Chair
Department of Mathematics
Texas Christian University