Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

Effective bounds play a very important role in algebraic geometry with many applications. In this talk I will survey recent progress and open questions in the quantitative study ofreal varieties and semi-algebraic sets and their connections with other areas of mathematics -- in particular,connections to incidence geometry via the polynomial partitioning method. I will also discuss some results on the topological complexity of symmetric varieties which have a representation-theoretic flavor. Finally, if time permits I will sketch how some of these results extend to the category of constructible sheaves.