Student Combinatorics: Grassmannian Cohomology & Symmetric Polynomials

Surprisingly, the cohomology ring of a complex grassmannian is isomorphic to a quotient of the ring of symmetric polynomials. While a great result in its own right, understanding this cohomology ring can also help solve problems in enumerative geometry. In this talk I will outline a proof of this result, and time permitting, we will also see an application of this in enumerative geometry.