VIRGINIA TECH GEOMETRY & TOPOLOGY SEMINAR (FALL 2026)

This seminar features talks surrounding geometry and topology (loosely-defined) and welcomes all undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate participants. All are welcome to join.

If you are interested in giving a talk/demonstration or would like to invite a guest speaker, please contact the organizers: Michael Schultz, Varun Scarlett, or Dan Douglas.

MEETING INFORMATION

We typically meet Tuesdays at 4-5pm in McBryde Hall 563 (unless otherwise announced; some talks will be in Kelly Hall 310). Talks are expected to be in-person, and any virtual talks will be marked explicitly in the title/abstract below.

SCHEDULE

Sep 15
Speaker TBD

Sep 22
Leo Herr
VT

(Joint with Peter Haine) Many geometric structures can be described as \emph{algebras} for a suitable monad. E.g., compact Hausdorff spaces are exactly the algebras for the ultrafilter monad on sets. I will explain this point of view through several concrete examples, starting with free abelian groups and rings, and then discussing ultrafilters, Eilenberg--Moore categories, and Kleisli categories. The emphasis will be on examples rather than category theory. The main application is in logarithmic geometry. I will explain how logarithmic maps can be realized as Kleisli morphisms for a natural monad built from Olsson's logarithmic stack. This leads to a functorial tropicalization construction for logarithmic schemes, recovering the usual fans of toric varieties and toroidal embeddings while remaining functorial for arbitrary logarithmic maps. (This talk is meant to be accessible to graduate students)

Sep 29
Speaker TBD

Oct 6
Richard Haburcak
Ohio State University

Abstract TBD

Oct 13
Dori Bejleri
UMD College Park

Abstract TBD

Oct 20
Jennifer Li
Princeton

Abstract TBD

Oct 27
Carl Lian
Washington University St. Louis

Abstract TBD

Nov 3
Speaker TBD

Nov 10
Soham Karwa
Duke

Abstract TBD

Nov 17
Nicola Tarasca
VCU

Abstract TBD

Nov 24
Thanksgiving

Dec 1
Daniel Halmrast
Lafeyette College

Abstract TBD

Dec 8
Edgar Saenz
VT

Abstract TBD



Past talk information can be found here.