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Since the early 1990's, there have been eight Differential Equations Weekends, four at the University of Memphis and four at Mississippi State University. The basic idea is periodically to bring together people in the "mid south" who are working in differential equations and applied analysis for a one day conference. The idea has been for this to be a "local meeting," so that the participants would normally have an easy drive to the conference venue. A main emphasis has always been to help graduate students feel they belong to a research community; the sharing of new research has always been a main priority as well as a feeling of collegiality and informality. The typical conference can be described as follows. The meeting lasts all day long on a Saturday. There are many talks, all at least for twenty minutes, and graduate students and young researchers are especially encouraged to present their results. There is no registration fee. Breakfast, lunch, coffee breaks, and an evening dinner and party are provided free to all participants; this encourages interaction since everyone stays together the entire day. There is plenty of time for informal discussions, and everybody meets everybody else. Typically there are forty or fifty participants of which generally fifteen or twenty are graduate students.
These meetings have been funded mainly through local sources, and all food expenses have always been covered. Thanks to NSF, currently some funding is available to cover at least the accommodation costs for all graduate students and recent doctorates. These low budget meetings have been extremely successful, and the participants have often returned repeatedly to renew old mathematical contacts and to forge new ones. We strongly hope to continue this tradition. |
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Copyright © 2011 DEW
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