Participant Testimonials
I have attended many workshops at BIRS. The Thirty Years of Floer Theory for 3-Manifolds workshop was my first trip to CMO. The logistics were very smooth. The scientific content of the workshop and workshop schedule were outstanding. There were many stimulating talks as well as two of the best problem sessions I have attended in years. The schedule provided the right mix between informal interaction time and formal presentations. To me good problems (interesting, open and with a reasonable chance to make progress) are some of the most valuable tools for generating research. There is a positive feedback effect where a good problem naturally leads to other good problems. The problem sessions generated a list of more than 30 problems. Very few were old stand-by questions that were well known. I think the concentration of researchers in the same area and the size of the workshop both contributed to the success of these sessions. I am excited to bring some of these problems back to my university where I have an enthusiastic second year graduate student. The problems will also strengthen my grant proposals this Fall. The list could not have come at a better time for me. Another positive benefit from attending workshops is the interaction with other researchers in the field. I will likely start a new collaborative project with another participant from the workshop last week. Let me make a special thank you to the work that you and your staff do. I spent three years on the directorate at MSRI and so have some idea of the administrative work that takes place in the background. I greatly appreciate all you and your staff do for the mathematical community.
I come back from CMO absolutely inspired. I now have a promising idea to solve a topology problem that I have been working on for 30 years. I could easily take a sabbatical to explore all of the new ideas that I have after these two workshops. These workshops will fuel my research program for the next few years.
