The Great Plains Operator Theory Symposium. From a modest beginning in 1981, the Great Plains Operator Theory Symposium (GPOTS) has become a major annual conference. It rotates between Universities in the U.S., with a new host university every year, and with NSF funding. For Spring 2026, it will be at the University of Iowa, a founding university. By now, GPOTS has evolved into a major international conference on operator theory and operator algebras. The symposium focuses on recent developments in Operator Algebras and Operator Theory. At the conference, leading researchers will discuss important new developments, new directions, and will propose problems for future research. It aims to be a leading conference, covering broad areas, and with large participation, including and inspiring many young people, who are encouraged to present their research. The award (if funded) will give early career researchers, members of underrepresented groups, and researchers not funded by NSF, an opportunity to attend and participate in this conference.
June 7-12, 2026
University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
Invited plenary lectures and contributed talks will cover Operator Algebras and Operator Theory. And related areas. The speakers will be leaders in their respective fields.
Evening reception, Sunday. Scientific Program Monday to Friday, at noon. Banquet, Wednesday.
Conference themes, and background. The subject has two Fields medals: V. Jones (connections between von Neumann algebras, physics, and knot theory), and A. Connes (a generalization of the Atiyah-Singer index theorem to foliated manifolds). Other exciting developments include applications to group representations, to free probability, to graph theory, to dynamical systems, and to quantum physics. Also, a striking new development is a recent solution to the Kadison-Singer problem. While KS arose originally as a problem in operator algebras, it now has demonstrated important connections to many other areas (combinatorics, harmonic analysis, Banach space theory, signal analysis, quantum physics, and theoretical computer science.)
Organizing committee. Professors Bezuglyi, Sergii sergii-bezuglyi@uiowa.edu ; Chifan, Ionut ionut-chifan@uiowa.edu ; Curto, Raul E raul-curto@uiowa.edu ; Drimbe, Daniel daniel-drimbe@uiowa.edu ; Jorgensen, Palle E palle-jorgensen@uiowa.edu Department of Mathematics, University of Iowa.
Support from the Department of Mathematics, attn.: Hulse, Lucianna lucie-hulse@uiowa.edu .
Two days before the start of the week of invited lectures, we will have a grad student boot camp/workshops, aiming to prepare our grad students for the lectures.