The segregation of chromosomes during cell division is accomplished by kinetochore machinery that uses depolymerizing microtubules to pull the chromosomes to opposite poles of the dividing cell. While much is known about molecular motors that pull by walking or push by polymerizing, the mechanism of how a pulling force can be achieved by depolymerization is still unresolved. In this talk, I will describe a new model for the depolymerization motor that is used by eukaryotic cells to segregate chromosomes during mitosis. In the process we will explore the use of Huxley-type models (population models) of protein binding and unbinding to study load-velocity curves of several different motor-like proteins.

We investigate the $p$-adic monodromy of certain kinds of abelian varieties in $\mathcal{A}_{g}$ and prove a formal density theorem for the locus of deformations with big monodromy. Also, we prove that the small monodromy locus of the deformation space of a supersingular elliptic curve is $p$-adic nowhere dense. The approach is based on a congruence condition of $p$-divisible groups and transform of data between the Rapoport-Zink spaces and deformation spaces.

Many simple card tricks rely on mathematical principles and logic. I will be talking about some of these tricks, and the interesting ideas behind them. Hopefully I will have time to show you two or three tricks, and the proof to how they work. I will be using work from Mathematical Magic by Diaconis and Graham. The exciting thing about these tricks is they do not rely upon sleight of hand, and come out looking stunning nonetheless.

A K3 surface is a 4-dimensional shape that appears in many areas of geometry and mathematical physics. I will define it and explore many of its amazing properties.

Given a (n x n)-matrix M over a commutative integral domain R, one can try to associate to it a diagonal matrix called the Smith Normal Form of M. This can be done when R is the ring of integers, or the polynomial ring F[x] over a field F, and various applications of the existence of the Smith Normal Form are discussed in matrix theory. Which commutative integral domains R have the property that every matrix with coefficients in R admits a Smith Normal form? This is a very old question, as for instance Wedderburn in 1915 already discussed the case where R is the ring of holomorphic functions. I will review all necessary concepts, and discuss several easily stated open problems in this circle of ideas.

While establishing various versions of the h-principle for contact distributions (Eliashberg (1989) in dimension 3, Borman-Eliashberg-Murphy (2015) in arbitrary dimension, and even-contact contact (D. McDuff, 1987) distributions are among the most remarkable advances in differential topology in the last four decades, very little is known about analogous results for other classes of distributions, e.g. generic distributions of corank 2 or higher. The smallest dimensional nontrivial case of corank 2 distributions is Engel distributions, i.e. the maximally nonholonomic rank 2 distributions on $4$-manifolds. This case is highly nontrivial and was treated recently by Casals-Pérez-del Pino-Presas (2017) and Casals-Pérez-Presas (2017). In my talk, I will show how to use the method of convex integration in order to establish all versions of the h-principle for corank 2 distributions of arbitrary odd rank satisfying a natural generic assumption on the associated pencil of skew-symmetric forms. During the talk, I will try to give all the necessary background related to the method of convex integration in principle. This is the joint work with Milan Jovanovic, Javier Martinez-Aguinaga, and Alvaro del Pino.