The aim of this one week Summer school is to familiarize graduate students with several groups and classes of groups that often appear in geometric group theory. See http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/~indira/SS2009.html [0]

This Summer School is supported by the National Science Foundation under CAREER Grant No. 0644613. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recomendations expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Fundation (NSF).

Speakers:

The following people have agreed to give a mini-course:

Goulnara Arzhantseva [1]: Random groups, a guided tour
Kai-Uwe Bux [2]: Thompson group
Pallavi Dani [3]: Nilpotent groups
Manfred Einsiedler [3]: SL(2,R)
Shelly Harvey [4]: Groups associated to knots and 3-manifolds
Olga Kharlampovich [5]: Limit groups
Seonhee Lim [6]: Groups acting on trees and buildings
Tatiana Nagnibeda [7]: Automata groups

Moreover, we will have lectures by TaraLee Mecham [8] and Helen Wong [9].

Program:

Participants will arrive Sunday May 10th, and check-in at that the Hampton Inn [10] (rooms are booked by the organizers for each funded participant and speaker), conveniently located in the nicest Columbus neighborhood and to reach it from the airport take a cab (keep the receipt). The Hampton Inn [11] is within a short bus ride to the math department [11], where classes will be held starting Monday May 11th. There will be a welcome dinner Sunday May 10th from 6 - 9pm in the 7th floor lounge of the Math Tower. The school will terminate Saturday May 16th at noon. Everybody is welcome!