We meet Thursdays at 2:50–3:50 pm in Whitney Hall 100E. This semester's organizers are James Hyde and Lorenzo Ruffoni. The seminar has an announcement mailing list open to all.

Topics include: geometric group theory, differential geometry and topology, low-dimensional topology, algebraic topology, and homotopy theory.

• January 23rd
  Organizational meeting, meet in WH 100E at 2:50pm

• January 30th
  Speaker: Matthew Zaremsky (University at Albany)
  Title: Progress around the Boone-Higman conjecture

  Abstract: The Boone-Higman conjecture (1973) predicts that every finitely generated group with solvable word problem embeds in a finitely presented simple group. There has been a flurry of recent activity around this conjecture, in particular relating it to the family of so called twisted Brin-Thompson groups. In this talk I will give some background on the conjecture, give a gentle introduction to twisted Brin-Thompson groups, and then discuss various recent results of mine, including some joint with combinations of Jim Belk, Collin Bleak, Francesco Fournier-Facio, James Hyde, and Francesco Matucci.
  

• February 6th
  Problem session
  

• February 13th
  No seminar
  

• February 20th
  No seminar
  

• February 27th
  Speaker: Valentina Zapata Castro (University of Virginia)
  Title: Monoidal complete Segal spaces

  Abstract: Viewing a monoid as a category with a single object allows us to encode the binary operation using the properties of composition and associativity inherent in any category. In this talk, we use this idea to explore the relationship between $(\infty,1)$-categories with a monoidal structure and $(\infty,2)$-categories with one object. This exploration relies on the model structure of simplicial and $\Theta_2$-spaces. The talk is designed to be self-contained, requiring no prior knowledge of the aforementioned categories.
  

• March 6th
  Speaker: Inhyeok Choi (Cornell University)
  Title: Genericity of pseudo-Anosovs and quasi-isometries

  Abstract: In this talk, I will explain a recent result that pseudo-Anosov mapping classes are generic in every Cayley graph of mapping class groups. If time permits, I will also explain why this strategy goes well with quasi-isometries and implies genericity of Morse elements for groups quasi-isometric to (many) 3-manifold groups and special cubical groups.
  

• March 13th
  Spring break

• March 20th
  Peter Hilton Memorial Lecture

• March 27th
  Speaker: Colby Kelln (Cornell University)
  Title: TBA

  Abstract: TBA
  

• April 3rd
  Speaker: Theodore Weisman (University of Michigan)
  Title: TBA

  Abstract: TBA
  

• April 10th
  Speaker: Marco Volpe (University of Toronto)
  Title: TBA

  Abstract: TBA
  

• April 17th
  Speaker: Sayantika Mondal (CUNY)
  Title: TBA

  Abstract: TBA
  

• April 24th
  Speaker: Kasia Jankiewicz (UC Santa Cruz / IAS)
  Title: TBA

  Abstract: TBA
  

• May 1st
  Speaker: TBA (Institution)
  Title: TBA

  Abstract: TBA