This October, Northeastern University’s Department of Mathematics will be hosting the bi-annual AGNES (Algebraic Geometry Northeastern Series) Conference, the largest conference in the U.S. for graduate students in algebraic geometry.
On October 13 to 15, the AGNES conference will host seven talks, 35 presenters, and over 170 participants, making this year’s conference one of the largest in AGNES’ history. Many algebraic geometers from Northeastern, neighboring universities, as well as others from around the country and the world will be visiting campus to discover more research in the area of algebraic geometry.
This conference was started in 2009 by contributing algebraic geometers at UMass Amherst, SUNY Stony Brook, and Brown University; adding Yale, Boston College, Rutgers, the University of Pennsylvania, University of Connecticut, MIT, and Northeastern University as years progressed.
AGNES’ main goal, through support from a continuing NSF grant, is to introduce and describe a variety of current research topics in algebraic geometry. Throughout an entire weekend of talks and discussions, presenters will share their research with other algebraic geometry scholars as well as the many graduate students pursuing careers in this field. The graduate students are also given an opportunity to present their own research to the wider algebraic geometry community through a poster session. One unique aspect of the conference this year is the discussion on women in mathematics, open to all men and women in attendance.
With Northeastern hosting the conference this year, many of the university’s mathematics faculty have collaborated to facilitate the event. Ana-Maria Castravet, Alina Marian, and Emanuele Macri are in charge of the main components of the event, while Laure Flapan and Xiaolei Zhao, Zelevinsky Research Instructors, have been organizing the poster session.
Professor Castravet has been involved in this event for a long time. Now, as the weekend approaches, she is very excited. “I am really looking forward to hearing the talks in AGNES, and I look forward to seeing the over 170 participants and poster presentations. It is the largest event I’ve ever organized, for sure,” she said.
