3. Postdoctoral Program - MSRI

EXTERNAL POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW REPORT
June 2010
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Year 1 final report for the NSF
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:42:39 -0600 (MDT)
From: Scott Crofts
To: Hélène Barcelo
Hi Helene,
Here is my end of the year report. Let me know if you need something more formal than
an email.
My first year as an NSF postdoctoral fellow at MSRI was very productive. One of the
main things I accomplished was generalizing the primary result in my thesis and
submitting a paper to the electronic journal Representation Theory. The manuscript I
submitted was very long (~75 pages) and I fully expected it to take some time to referee.
I just recently received referee comments back and overall they were positive. The
referee was concerned about the length and some aspects of the exposition, but I am
confident I can address these issues and I am actively working to make these revisions.
In addition to working to extend the results of my thesis, I branched out in two different
directions by starting work on two collaborative projects. The first is with Jeffrey Adams
at the University of Maryland. We began a project to develop a two-sided parameter
space for nonlinear simply laced groups expanding on the work of Fokko du Cloux. This
work is related to the `Atlas of Lie Groups and Representations' project and is the
potential first step for using computers to compute the unitary dual of a nonlinear group.
At this point I think we have some nice results and I expect to spend time this summer
writing them up.
My other collaboration is with Peter Trapa. We began a project to classify the W-cells for
nonlinear indefinite unitary groups. I am happy to report we believe we have a complete
answer to this question. I have begun the process of writing up this result as well. The
ideas needed in the proof are very new to me, so this is taking some time, but is a great
way to learn.
This year I traveled to Maryland, Utah, and AIM. I gave talks on my research at each
place as well as in Santa Cruz. I was also able to teach one course at UCSC this year - a
multivariable calculus course. It was a lot of work, but very enjoyable. Although it
definitely slowed down my research a bit, I do think it is important to continue to teach -
hopefully it will help in applying for jobs this fall.
Finally, Marty Weissman has been an excellent mentor. He has been very
accommodating and has always made sure that I have the resources I need at UCSC. He
is always available to bounce ideas off of or provide insight into whatever I am working