# Cascade Topology Seminar, Spring 2015

The 54th semi-annual Cascade Topology Seminar will occur on the April 25th-26th weekend in Victoria, BC, Canada.

Speakers and titles:

Tali Pinsky (UBC): "On the volumes of complements of geodesics on Surfaces."

Allison Henrich (Seattle U.): "Pseudoknots and their invariants."

David Ayala (Montana State): "Some abstract applications of factorization homology."

Balazs Strenner (U.Wisc): "Pseudo-Anosov mapping classes arising from Penner’s construction."

Chuck Livingston (U.Indiana): "A survey of recent work on knot concordance."

Maxime Bergeron (UBC): "The topology of representation varieties."

Adam Clay (U. Manitoba): "Foliations, left-orderability and L-spaces."

All talks will be in DTB A102. This is on the bottom floor of the Math Department building, previously known as SSM. Reception, Tea/Coffee times are in DTB A514.

Schedule Saturday
9:30am Reception, Tea and Coffee.
10:30am Ayala
11:30am Pinsky
12:40pm Lunch
2:00pm Strenner
3:00pm tea
3:30pm Clay
4:30pm Henrich

Saturday night we will have dinner at a restaurant downtown.   For people that arrive early-enough on Friday, we will likely go out for drinks and/or food, near the hotels. E-mail Ryan Budney a few days before the meeting for the details.

Schedule Sunday
9:00am Tea and coffee
9:30am Bergeron
10:30am Livingston

Getting to and from Victoria:

If you are coming from a long distance, the best way to get to Victoria is via the local airport, Victoria International Airport (YYJ).  You will likely want to arrive on the Friday.  Be aware it is difficult to get to the east coast of Canada or the States on a Sunday if you depart in the afternoon.  Quite often we have to resort to red-eye flights.

From Vancouver, the cheapest way to get to Victoria is by the bus. There is also a ferry, a harbour plane, and a helicopter service.  The bus drives onto the ferry -- it is the most relaxing way to arrive on a budget.  The harbour plane and helicopter service land near the downtown hotels, but have restrictive hours.

If you are driving from the States, the Port Angeles ferry is likely the best option.  There is also a pedestrian ferry from Seattle.

Transport inside Victoria: Be aware taxis in Victoria are relatively expensive.  A ride from the airport to your hotel will cost between $60 and$100.  The airport shuttle is far more cost-effective.  From the airport you can buy your ticket without reservation.  For the return trip, you book through your hotel.  Taxis between the airport and UVic usually cost between $40-$50.

Getting between the centre of town and the university is an approximate 20-minute bus ride. Busses regularly depart the corner of Douglas and Fort (near your hotels) in the north and east directions for the University.  All busses that stop at UVic say "UVic" on their fronts, and UVic is their final stop.

Hotels: Popular hotels in the Victoria area include the Marriott,  Swan's HotelChateau Victoria, the Delta Ocean Pointe, and the Coast Harbourside Hotel

We would like to thank PIMS and the NSF for generously supporting this conference.

Pictures from the conference.

The 55th will be in Portland.