[picture of regular hyperbolic dodecahedron with right angles between adjacent faces]

International Conference on
Nonpositive Curvature
in Group Theory, Topology, and Geometry

Mathematics Department -- Vanderbilt University
Nashville, Tennessee -- May 28-31, 1998

This conference -- to be held in conjunction with the 13th Shanks Lectures -- will highlight significant recent developments in non-positively curved geometry, topology and geometric group theory. The aim of the conference is to explore the interplay between these areas and provide a forum for the participants to meet and jointly examine problems of common interest in an informal atmosphere. An alphabetical list of all participants is now available, with surface mail and email addresses. If this list does not include someone who you expected to see, you might also check our brief list of cancellations.

Researchers in neighboring areas whose interests fit the general aims of the conference are encouraged to participate. The scientific program of the conference will consist of nine one-hour invited lectures and several special sessions of 20-minute contributed talks. This year's Shanks Lecturer is André Haefliger (University of Geneva). Also, one-hour invited talks will be given by:

Mladen Bestvina, James Cannon, Michael Davis, Benson Farb, Steven Ferry, Boris Goldfarb, Misha Kapovich, and Bruce Kleiner.
Registration will begin on Thursday, May 28, at 7:45 a.m., in Wilson Hall. The conference, also in Wilson hall, will begin at 8:30 a.m. The last talk will end on Sunday, May 31, at 11 a.m. A tentative SCHEDULE of all the talks and an alphabetical list of all speakers are now available; both of those web pages include links to all the abstracts. We are grateful to Atlas Mathematical Conference Abstracts; that organization has arranged the abstracts for us. (The web page viewing software does not fully process the TeX code, but a full TeX version of the abstracts will be available in booklet form at the conference.)

Evening events

We will have a barbecue on Thursday, May 28th, and a reception on Friday, May 29th. Click here for additional information.

Making arrangements

To register for the conference, you may fill out and return our registration form. Note that the registration fee goes up after March 1.

Please make a reservation using our list of hotels with held blocks of rooms. The locations of those hotels and of Wilson Hall (site of the meeting) can be found on our map page. That page also tells about weather, restaurants, and other local information.

Organizers and further information

The organizing committee consists of B. Hughes, M. Mihalik, E. Prassidis, J. Ratcliffe, K. Ruane, M. Sapir, and E. Schechter. Any paper mail should be sent to:

This web page will be updated as more information becomes available; the most recent update was on 13 May 1998.

Some links of related interest