Title: Dissertation Defense

Abstract: We study a class of determinantal ideals called skew tableau ideals, which are generated by (t x t) minors in a subset of a symmetric matrix of indeterminates.  The initial ideals have been studied in the (2 x 2) case by Corso, Nagel, Petrovic and Yuen.  Using liaison techniques, we have extended their results to include the original determinantal ideals in the (2 x 2) case, and obtained some partial results in the (t x t) case.  A critical tool we use is an elementary biliaison, and producing these requires some technical determinantal calculations.  We have uncovered in error a previous determinantal lemma that was applied in several papers, and have used the straightening law for minors of a matrix to establish a new determinantal relation.  This new tool is quite versatile; it fixes the gaps in the previous papers and provides the main computational power in several of our own arguments.  This is joint work with Uwe Nagel.