Speaker 

José Antonio Seade Kuri

President, Mexican Academy of Sciences

“Mathematics are the heart of scientific thinking. Go there and enjoy yourself”

José Seade received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Oxford in 1980. He has held a research position at the Mathematics Institute of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) since then. His main areas of research are dynamical systems and singularity theory, areas in which he is well-known worldwide. His honors include the Solomon Lefschetz Medal and two Ferran Sunyer I Ballaguer Prizes.

Professor Seade is a Member of the World Academy of Sciences and is currently President of the Mexican Academy of Sciences for the period 2023-2026.

Abstract

Chern classes of manifolds and vector bundles are fundamental invariants in geometry and topology, and these are much related to indices of vector fields (or sections). The analogous theory for singular varieties has been developed since the 1960s by various authors, and even so we can say that it is still in its childhood. In this talk we shall revise some aspects of this theory with focus on the geometry.