Department Home Page About Us: • Contact Info. • Faculty • Staff • Teaching Assistants Academic Program: • Admission • Undergraduate • Graduate • Certificates Courses: • Course Description • Class Web Pages • Class Syllabi Research: • Colloquium • Interdisciplinary Seminar • Seminars • Steve Goldman Lectures in Mathematical Physics Links: • Completing Online GEP Courses • Best Jobs • Newsletter • Math Lab •Math Placement Test • Careers • American Mathematical Society • Mathematical Association of America

Phone: (407) 823-6284;   Fax: (407) 823-6253;   MAP  207 2004-2005 MATHEMATICS COLLOQUIUM SERIES 02/08/05 Colloquium Dr. Laura Matusevich University of Pennsylvania Multivariate Hypergeometric Functions Abstract:   In the late 1980s, Gelfand, Kapranov and Zelevinsky uncovered a connection between the classical hypergeometric functions and the theory of toric varieties. This surprising link to combinatorics and algebraic geometry can be exploited to obtain hypergeometric results. I will give a small survey of GKZ theory, ending in the recent solution (joint with Ezra Miller and Uli Walther) of a conjecture of Sturmfels concerning holonomic ranks of hypergeometric systems. Dr. Matusevich received the PhD in Mathematics from UC Berkeley in May, 2002. She held a postdoctoral position at MSRI and a Benjamin Peirce Assistant Professorship at Harvard University. Presently, she is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She has broad research interests that include Combinatorics, Algebraic Geometry, and Tomography.