Princeton, N.J., April 15, 2008 - Sixty-four women mathematicians from throughout the United States will gather at the Institute for Advanced Study this May for the Program for Women and Mathematics.  The 11-day residential program, sponsored by the Institute and Princeton University, will be held from May 12 to May 23, marking its 15^th year on the Institute campus. 

    Designed to encourage women to pursue careers in mathematics by providing opportunities for learning and research, and mentoring and peer relations, the program is being organized by Sun-Yung Alice Chang and Ingrid Daubechies of Princeton University; Antonella Grassi of the University of Pennsylvania; Tanya Khovanova of MIT; Chuu-Lian Terng of the University of California, Irvine; and Karen Uhlenbeck of The University of Texas at Austin.

   The research topic for 2008 is Knots, Surfaces, the Curve Complex, Foliations and All That.  Three-dimensional manifolds are special not only because we are most inherently three-dimensional ourselves, but also because many of the tools that have been developed for the mathematical study of higher-dimensional manifolds do not apply.  Some problems, such as the Poincaré conjecture, are harder to solve in a smaller number of dimensions such as three or four.  Knot theory, a part of low-dimensional topology, is beautiful, intriguing -- it is not easy to see that two knots are the same -- and useful, as it now has applications in biology (protein folding) and pharmaceuticals. 

    The first week of the program will be devoted to surfaces and orbifolds, including the geometry of the hyperbolic plane and basic properties of surfaces.  The second week will focus on knots and their complements in the three-sphere, examining various classes of knots, particularly two-bridge knots.  Symmetries of knots and how to tell when two knots are the same will be discussed.  There will be an emphasis on properties of the complement, and students will have the opportunity to use the programSnapPea, which is designed to create and study hyperbolic 3-manifolds.

    Participants will include undergraduate and graduate students as well as postdoctoral scholars and senior researchers.  A variety of activities, both formal and informal, will be offered to encourage interaction among participants.  In addition to undergraduate and graduate level lecture courses, there are research seminars, problem and review sessions, colloquia and Women-in-Science seminars.  A day of activities on the Princeton University campus, including lectures and a dinner, is planned for Friday, May 16.

    Faculty members for the program include Genevieve Walsh of Tufts University for the Beginning Lecture Course, and Rachel Roberts of Washington University, St. Louis and Jennifer Schultens of the University of California, Davis, for the Advanced Lecture Course.

    In addition to the organizers, those serving on the Program Committee are Katherine Bold of Princeton University; Nancy Hingston of The College of New Jersey; Rhonda Hughes and Lisa Traynor of Bryn Mawr College; Robert MacPherson of the Institute's School of Mathematiacs; Cynthia Diane Rudin of the NYU Center for Neural Science; and Janet Talvacchia of Swarthmore College.

    Support for the program has been provided by the National Science Foundation and The Starr Foundation.