Speaker:  Mark Brittenham, University of North Texas

Title: Tying surfaces up in knots

Abstract:

This talk will explore the many ways in which a surface (with boundary) 
F can be embedded in 3-space. The boundary of F forms a knotted circle 
(AKA a knot) in space, and the many different ways to embed F give rise 
to many different knots K. Our main focus will be to provide answers to
the questions: given a knot K, what kinds of surfaces F in space have K 
as their boundary, and what can such surfaces tell us about our knot K?