GAGTA Sapir Lecture

• The GAGTA Steering Committee is pleased to announce establishing the Sapir Distinguished Lecture series, as a part of the GAGTA conferences, in honor of  Mark V. Sapir (1957-2022). 

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• The Sapir Distinguished Lecture for an outstanding scientific result in and related areas, broadly construed, is an international distinction conferred every two years at an installment of the Geometric and Asymptotic Group Theory with Applications (GAGTA) conference series.  It celebrates Mark Sapir's memory and work by highlighting an outstanding recent paper of an early career researcher(s) in group theory and related areas, including applications and emerging new directions.

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• The Sapir Distinguished Lecture will take place in alternating years during the GAGTA conference, in alternation with the Schupp Distinguished Lecture, with the inaugural Sapir lecture to be delivered at GAGTA 2026. The GAGTA 2026 conference is currently expected to take place in June 2026 at the City College of CUNY in New York City and has been approved as a satellite conference of ICM 2026 in Philadelphia.

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• 2026 Sapir Distinguished Lecture and a call for nominations 

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• The call for nominations for the GAGTA 2026 Sapir lecture opened at the GAGTA 2025 conference and will be additionally circulated through the relevant mailing lists.
  
  

• The call for nominations will close on October 31st, 2025.
  
  

• A paper cannot be nominated by one of its authors. At least half of the authors should be at most 8 years after the PhD defense on October 31, 2025
  
  

• Nominated papers must have been published in January 2025 or later, or accepted May 2024 or later, or have been uploaded to the arXiv between May 2023 and May 2025, inclusive.
  
  

• An international selection committee co-chaired by Ilya Kapovich (Hunter College of the City University of New York) and Enric Ventura (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya ) will consider the nominations and will select the  work to be distinguished.
  
  

• The committee will contact the authors of the selected work at least four months before the GAGTA conference.
  
  

• A condition of the award is that one of the young career authors presents the results at the GAGTA 2026 conference.
  
  

• The Sapir Lecture is an international award, and nominations are welcome for papers by researchers from all countries and backgrounds.
  
  

• Nominations of papers for the 2026 Sapir Distinguished Lecture can be submitted to either Ilya Kapovich (ik535@hunter.cuny.edu) or Enric Ventura (enric.ventura@upc.edu). When nominating a paper, please include a brief statement explaining the significance of the results obtained there.
  
  

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Sapir Lecture Selection Committee

The Sapir Lecture Section Committee for the 2026 inaugural Sapir Distingushed Lecture consists of:

• Ilya Kapovich (Hunter College of CUNY), co-Chair

• Enric Ventura (Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya), co-Chair

• Martin Bridson (Oxford University)

• Tullio Ceccherini-Silberstein (University of Sannio)

• Indira Chatterji (University of Côte d'Azur) 

• Sara Rees (University of Newcastle)

• Kim Ruane (Tufts University)