Participant Testimonials
Thank you very much for supporting our meeting in BIRS this September. The meeting was an absolute success! Just yesterday I received yet another email from a young participant telling me how beneficial the workshop was for him (we will put some of the extracts in the report). It was a very fruitful meeting: new research programs were discussed and what was amazing, some of them turned out to be related in the most unexpected ways! New collaborations were started, the old ones continued, etc. etc. All this would not have been possible without BIRS and your support!
During the workshop I was able to discuss a problem with Prof. Andrew Chermak, which I had discussed with Prof. Michael Aschbacher last year. Some new and unpublished results of Chermak seem to point into the right direction, the workshop was an opportunity to bring the ideas together.
Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Copenhagen
The workshop gave me the opportunity to learn about exciting new developments in neighboring fields. I also found the time to work together with several of my coauthors on finishing off joint projects.
I found some new, strange examples of non-growing sets in finite simple groups. With Gill, my former coauthor we discussed possible applications of a new growth result he obtained recently.
Discrete Mathematics, Renyi Institute of Mathematics Budapest
I was able to make progress on 2 different research projects, one with Barabra Baumeister, and a second with Kay Magaard. As well, I had preliminary discussions with Tim Burness about a possible collaboration. This was all very valuable and would have taken much longer under ordinary circumstances.
In my opinion, the lectures given at the workshop were very interesting and informative. They covered many different important research topics in the area. The workshop's schedule also provided ample time for me to discuss various mathematical questions with other participants. In particular, I had stimulating discussions with M. Aschbacher, R. M. Guralnick, and M. Liebeck on some ongoing research projects. I will continue working on these projects.
This conference was very helpful for my own research programme! I had the chance to talk with several people, including Micheal Aschbacher, and could ask some specific and some general questions that are not suitable over email. It is only at such high-level conferences like this one that I meet these persons and can talk to them. For instance, and more exactly, the motivation of Micheal's study of the E_6 module was important for me to know, so that I can consider similar applications for my study of the E_7 and E_8 modules.
I was at the Banff Centre for the first time and I was impressed by the surroundings and by the atmosphere on campus. There were many interesting talks and plenty of opportunities to talk to colleagues, so I could make progress in an ongoing project, get to know new people and learn a lot about recent important results in my research area.
