10:00 to 11:00 Tim Burness (University of Bristol)The length and depth of a group INI 1 11:00 to 11:10 Group Photo 11:30 to 12:30 Aner Shalev (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)Subset products and applications In the past two decades there has been intense interest in products of subsets in finite groups. Two important examples are Gowers' theory of Quasi Random Groups and its applications by Nikolov, Pyber, Babai and others, and the theory of Approximate Subgroups and the Product Theorem of Breuillard-Green-Tao and Pyber-Szabo on growth in finite simple groups of Lie type of bounded rank, extending Helfgott's work. These deep theories yield strong results on products of three subsets (covering, growth). What can be said about products of two subsets? I will discuss a recent joint work with Michael Larsen and Pham Tiep on this challenging problem, focusing on products of two normal subsets of finite simple groups, and deriving some applications. The proofs involve algebraic geometry, representation theory and combinatorics. INI 1 14:30 to 15:30 Nikolay Nikolov (University of Oxford)Rank gradient in profinite groups In this talk I will focus on the growth of generators in open subgroups of profinite groups. In the case of abstract groups this topic has received a lot of attention but in the profinite situation there are not many results and they tend to be different from those for abstract groups. For example a pro-p group of positive rank gradient must have a dense free subgroup. As far as I know the analogous question for profinite groups is still open. INI 1 16:00 to 17:00 Cheryl Praeger (University of Western Australia)Kirk Lecture: The mathematics of Shuffling The crux of a card trick performed with a deck of cards usually depends on understanding how shuffles of the deck change the order of the cards. By understanding which permutations are possible, one knows if a given card may be brought into a certain position. The mathematics of shuffling a deck of 2n cards with two perfect shuffles'' was studied thoroughly by Diaconis, Graham and Kantor in 1983. I will report on our efforts to understand a generalisation of this problem, with a so-called "many handed dealer'' shuffling kn cards by cutting into k piles with n cards in each pile and using k! possible shuffles. A conjecture of Medvedoff and Morrison suggests that all possible permutations of the deck of cards are achieved, as long as k is not 4 and n is not a power of k. We confirm this conjecture for three doubly infinite families of integers, including all (k, n) with k > n. We initiate a more general study of shuffle groups, which admit an arbitrary subgroup of shuffles. This is joint work with Carmen Amarra and Luke Morgan. INI 1