Alejandro Ádem Díaz de León


Ph.D. 1986, Princeton University
Professor and Canada Research Chair
Department of Mathematics
University of British Columbia
adem at math dot ubc dot ca

Curriculum Vitae

B.S. Faculty of Sciences, National University of Mexico, 1982

Ph.D. Department of Mathematics, Princeton University, 1986

Szego Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, Stanford University, 1986-89

Member, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, 1989-90

Assistant Professor, 1989-92
Associate Professor, 1992-96
Professor, 1996-2006
Honorary Fellow, 2006 - present
Chair, 1999-2002
Department of Mathematics, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Visiting Positions:
MSRI (1990), ETH-Zurich (1993-94), Max Planck Institut-Bonn (1997-98, 2004),
University of Paris VII (1998), CRM-Barcelona (1998), University of Paris XIII (2000),
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (2001), Princeton University (2004),
University of Michigan (2007)


Awards

A.P. Sloan Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, 1985

National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award, 1992

Romnes Faculty Fellowship, 1995

Vilas Associate Award, 2003

Canada Research Chair in Topology, 2004


Publications

1. Z/p-Actions on (S^n)^k, Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, 300 (1987), 791-809

2. The Free Rank of Symmetry of (S^n)^k, (joint with W. Browder) Inventiones Mathematicae, 92 (1988), 431-440

3. Cohomological Restrictions on Finite Group Actions, Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra, 54 (1988), 117-139

4. Homology Representations of Finite Transformation Groups, Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes No. 1370, 1989

5. Cohomological Exponents of ZG-Lattices, Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra, 58 (1989), 1-5

6. Torsion in Equivariant Cohomology, Commentarii Mathematici Helvetici, 64 (1989), 401-411

7. On the Exponent of Cohomology of Discrete Groups, Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society, 21 (1989) 585-590

8. Generalized Tate Homology, Homotopy Fixed-Points and the Transfer, (joint with R. Cohen and W. Dwyer), Contemporary Mathematics 96 (1989), 1-13

9. Symmetric Invariants and Cohomology of Groups, (joint with J. Maginnis and R. J. Milgram), Mathematische Annalen 287 (1990), 391-411

10. Discrete Groups with Large Exponents in Cohomology, (joint with J. Carlson), Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra 66 (1990), 111-120

11. The Geometry and Cohomology of the Mathieu Group M_12, (joint with J. Maginnis and R. J. Milgram), Journal of Algebra 139 (1991), 90-133

12. Cohomological Non-Vanishing for Modules over p-Groups, Journal of Algebra 141 (1991), 376-381

13. Euler Characteristics and Cohomology of p-Local Discrete Groups, Journal of Algebra 149 (1992), 183-196

14. On the K-theory of the Classifying Space of a Discrete Group, Mathematische Annalen 292 (1992), 319-327

15. A_5-Invariants and the Cohomology of L_3(4) and Related Extensions, (joint with R. J. Milgram), Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society 66, Part 1 (1993), 187-224

16. On the Geometry and Cohomology of Finite Simple Groups, Proceedings of the 1990 Barcelona Topology Conference, Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Mathematics 1509 (1992), 1-9

17. Representations and K-theory of Discrete Groups, Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society Vol.28, No.1 (1993), 95-98

18. Characters and K-theory of Discrete Groups, Inventiones Mathematicae 114 (1993), 489-514

19. Invariants and Cohomology of Groups, (joint with R. J. Milgram), Boletin Sociedad Matematica Mexicana (Adem Memorial Volume), Vol. 37 (1995), 1-22

20. The Cohomology of the Mathieu Group M_22, (joint with R. J. Milgram), Topology, Vol. 34 No. 2 (1995), 389-410

21. Discrete Groups, Grothendieck Rings and Families of Finite Subgroups, Contemporary Mathematics Volume 188 (1995), 1-23

22. Linear Maps over Abelian Group Algebras, (joint with R. G. Swan), Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra 104 (1995) Vol.1 1-7

23. The Subgroup Structure and Mod 2 Cohomology of O'Nan's Sporadic Simple Group, (joint with R. J. Milgram), Journal of Algebra 176 (1995), 288-315

24. The Mod 2 Cohomology Rings of Rank 3 Simple Groups are Cohen Macaulay (joint with R. J. Milgram), Annals of Mathematics Studies Vol.138 (1995) 3-13

25. Automorphisms and Cohomology of Discrete Groups, Journal of Algebra 182 (1996), 721-737

26. The Cohomology of the McLaughlin Group and Some Associated Groups (joint with R. J. Milgram), Mathematische Zeitschrift Vol. 224 No. 4 (1997) 495-517

27. Essential Cohomology of Finite Groups, (joint with D. Karagueuzian), Commentarii Mathematici Helvetici 72 (1997) 101-109

28. Elementary Abelian Groups Acting on Products of Spheres, (joint with D. J. Benson), Mathematische Zeitschrift 228 (1998) 705-712

29. On the Cohomology of SL_2(Z[1/p]) (joint with N. Naffah), London Mathematical Society Lecture Note Series 252, pp. 1-9 (1998), Cambridge University Press

30. Buildings, Groups Extensions and Cohomology of Congruence Subgroups, Contemporary Mathematics 220 (1998) 1-15

31. Periodic Cyclic Cohomology of Group Rings, (joint with M. Karoubi), Comptes Rendus de l'Academie des Sciences (Paris), t. 326, Serie I, pp. 13-17, 1998

32. Topological Models and the Cohomology of Galois Groups, (joint with Karagueuzian and Minac), Comptes Rendus de l'Academie des Sciences (Paris), t. 326, Serie I, pp. 919-924, (1998)

33. The Cohomology of the Lyons Group and Double Covers of the Alternating Groups (joint with D. Karagueuzian, R. J. Milgram and K. Umland), Journal of Algebra 208, pp. 452-479 (1998)

34. On Some Examples of Group Actions and Group Extensions (joint with E. Yalcin), Journal of Group Theory 2, pp. 69--79 (1999)

35. On Spaces with Periodic Cohomology, (joint with Jeff Smith), Electronic Research Announcements of the AMS 6 (2000)

36. On the Cohomology of Galois Groups Determined by Witt Rings (joint with Karagueuzian and Minac), Advances in Mathematics 148, pp.105-160 (1999)

37. Field Theory and the Cohomology of Some Galois Groups (joint with Gao, Karagueuzian and Minac), Journal of Algebra 235, pp.608-635 (2001)

38. On the Cohomology of Central Frattini Extensions (joint with Pakianathan), Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra 159, pp.1-14 (2001)

39. The Cohomology of the Sylow 2-subgroup of the Higman-Sims Group (joint with Carlson, Karagueuzian and Milgram), Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra 164, pp.275-305 (2001)

40. Periodic Complexes and Group Actions (joint with J.Smith), Annals of Mathematics 154, pp. 407-435 (2001).

41. Finite Group Actions on Acyclic 2--Complexes, Bourbaki Lecture No. 894, in Astérisque, Vol. 290 (2003), pp. 1--17.

42. Twisted Orbifold K-theory (joint with Y.Ruan), Communications in Mathematical Physics 237, pp. 533--556 (2003).

43. On Representations and K-theory of the Braid Groups (joint with D.Cohen and F.Cohen), Mathematische Annalen 326, pp. 515--542 (2003).

44. Constructing and Deconstructing Group Actions, Contemporary Mathematics 346, pp. 1--8 (2004).

45. Fixity and Free Group Actions on Products of Spheres (joint with J.Davis and O.Unlu), Commentarii Mathematici Helvetici 79, pp. 758-778 (2004).

46. Toroidal Orbifolds, Gerbes and Group Cohomology (joint with J.Pan), Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 358 (2006), 3969-3983.

47. Lectures on the Cohomology of Finite Groups, Contemporary Mathematics 436 (2007), 317-334.

48. Commuting Elements and Spaces of Homomorphisms (joint with F.Cohen), Mathematische Annalen 338 (2007), 587-626. Erratum (posted July 2009).

49. A Stringy Product on Twisted Orbifold K-theory (joint with Y.Ruan and B.Zhang), invited paper in Morfismos (10th Anniversary Issue), Vol. 11, No 2 (2007), 33-64.

50. Compatible Actions and Cohomology of Crystallographic Groups (joint with J.Ge, J.Pan and N.Petrosyan), Journal of Algebra 320 (2008), 341-353.

51. On decomposing suspensions of simplicial spaces (joint with A.Bahri, M.Bendersky, F.Cohen, and S.Gitler), Boletín Sociedad Matemática Mexicana, to appear.

52. Commuting elements, simplicial spaces, and filtrations of classifying spaces (joint with F.Cohen and E.Torres-Giese), preprint 2009.

53. Lectures on Orbifolds and Group Cohomology (joint with M.Klaus), based on lectures given in Hangzhou, China, summer 2008.

54. Commuting elements in central products of special unitary groups (joint with Frederick R. Cohen and Jose Manuel Gomez), preprint 2009.

55. Bundles, Cohomology and Truncated Symmetric Polynomials (joint with Zinovy Reichstein), preprint 2009.


Books

Cohomology of Finite Groups (with R.J. Milgram),
Springer-Verlag Grundlehren 309 (1st edition 1994, second edition 2004)

Orbifolds and Stringy Topology (with J. Leida and Y. Ruan),
Cambridge Tracts in Mathematics, Volume 171 (2007)


Research Interests

General Areas
Topology and Algebra

Specific Topics
Cohomology of groups
Sporadic simple groups
Group actions
Arithmetic groups
K-theory
Orbifolds
Spaces of homomorphisms

Current and Graduated Students


Conference Information

Oberwolfach Workshop Cohomology of Finite Groups: Interactions and Applications
Organizers: Alejandro Adem, Jon F. Carlson and Henning Krause
Dates: July 25th - July 31st, 2010

Mathematics and Education

Remarks delivered at the US Secretary of Education's Mathematics Summit, held in Washington D.C. on February 6, 2003.


I was co-PI of the UW-Madison NSF VIGRE Grant (read about it in this news article).

Committees and Professional Service

I serve as editor for the Transactions and Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society. Please submit any high quality papers on algebraic topology and related topics by following these instructions. Electronic submissions are strongly encouraged.


I am Director of the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences, and ex-officio member of their Scientific Review Panel as well as their Board of Directors. Please contact me if you'd like to know more about activities at PIMS.


I am Chair of the Committee on the Profession of the American Mathematical Society (COPROF).