Stephanie van Willigenburg
(York University)
For each Coxeter group we can partition up the group elements in a certain way, and form a formal sum from the elements. These formal sums form the basis of what is known as a descent algebra. Much study has gone into these algebras over a field of characteristic 0, but little has been done over a field of finite characteristic. My research has attempted to formulate some results in this area, and in this talk I shall discuss what has been found so far, both for certain Coxeter group families, such as the symmetric groups, and in general.