Chilean Complex Geometry Group
Historic Note:
In the early seventies a generation of enthusiastic young people went into science in Chile. They were determined to continue graduate studies abroad and afterwards return to Chile to promote drastic changes in a broad spectrum of intellectual aspects of the national life.
C. H. Clemens was an US mathematician who helped many Chileans become mathematicians, and promoted the creation of a Complex Geometry Group in Chile. He encouraged Gonzalo Riera and Rubí Rodríguez in undertaking graduate studies at the Columbia University under the supervision of L. Bers. On the other hand, Víctor González Aguilera studied in Paris 7 under the supervision of J. L. Verdier and F. Norguet.
At the beginning of the eighties they returned to Chile and run a seminar in Santiago on the following subjects: Algebraic Geometry, Kleinian groups and Riemann surfaces. Their work during this period has been collected into yearly monographs.
The seminar attracted soon students and colleagues throughout the country, many of whom started to develop an interest in research, which was very little developed in the country at that time. As a consequence of their seminal work some chilean students got a master degree in Geometry under the supervision of the members of the Complex Geometry Group and several of these students went abroad to pursue their doctorate, after which they went back to join the group. The international collaborations, developed by the founders of the Complex Geometry Group, helped the Chilean mathematical community to exit from isolation and opened the way to the creation of PhD programs in Chile in the area of Geometry, favouring the attraction of foreign geometers.
In 1998 a series of conferences named "Iberoamerican Congress on Geometry" were initiated in Chile, with the strong support of Irwin Kra (USA), Sevin Recillas (Mexico) and José María Muñoz Porras (Spain).
This is how the Chilean Group on Complex Geometry was formed and how it continues to grow.