Short Talks by Postdoctoral Members

A contact structure is a geometric structure on a 3-manifold (in general, on a 2n+1 manifold) which arises naturally when studying symplectic 4-manifolds. In this talk, I'll describe an important correspondence between contact structures and open books, the latter of which are strictly topological (rather than geometric) objects. I'll then talk about recent attempts to understand when and whether certain topological features of open books have geometric counterparts in their corresponding contact structures.