Markus Szymik

The symmetric groups, the general linear groups, and the automorphism groups of free groups are examples of families of groups that arise as symmetry groups of algebraic structures but that are also dear to topologists. There are many other less obvious examples of interest. For instance, in joint work with Nathalie Wahl, this point of view has led to a computation of the homology of the Higman-Thompson groups. It is also key to progress on groups related to mapping class groups and braid groups that I would like to present in this talk.