My participation at the BIRS workshop was indeed quite useful. Since it has only been a few months since the workshop, the most tangible research that I can point to is a recent paper "Bases for cluster algebras from surfaces" with Ralf Schiffler and Lauren Williams. Having time at Banff to discuss some finishing touches with my collaborators, as well as discuss questions that arose about related results with the other experts attending the workshop was quite useful. Several new contacts were also beneficial, including Demonet, Early, Muller, Plamondon, Tumarkin, among others. I had heard about the work of several of my new contacts (and in some cases been at the same conferences as them before) but this was the first opportunity to have long conversations with them about their research, which were quite enlightening to us both. I am now in the process of pursuing some of the references and ideas that I learned about while at BIRS (both through lectures and discussions around the dining hall). Some of these projects include looking further at atomic bases, as discussed with Schiffler, Thomas, and Williams; investigating more connections to character varieties, as discussed with Muller; and studying (generalized cluster categories and their relation to surfaces, as discussed with Brustle, Keller, Plamondon, and Todorov.

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I discussed with another participant, Leclerc, on his recent new preprint with Hernandez. It gives me a fresh insight on my old result on graded quiver varieties. I have talked with Schroer on my student who will defend Ph.D soon, and plan to visit Bonn. He told me that he welcome my student.

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