my name is james dolan (email address: jdolan@math.ucr.edu), and i'm an active mathematician with a significant interest in category theory. i don't have a phd but would like to get one, and i'm looking for a math (or computer science) department that would be a good fit as a place for me to enroll as a phd student. i'm writing to this mailing list in an attempt to efficiently reach my target audience of mathematicians who might be receptive to such a possibility at their department. (passing this message on to more appropriate recipients would be appreciated.) here's the most crucial factor for me in determining whether a department would be a good fit for me: as a phd student i'd need financial support, presumably in the form of a teaching assistantship. i have very strong ideas about how to teach, and would be unhappy with any teaching assignment where i didn't have sufficient teaching autonomy. thus i need a department to be flexible with regard to the teaching assignments that i receive as a teaching assistant. aside from this crucial requirement, all i'm looking for is a department that would serve as an intellectually stimulating environment in which to write a phd thesis. some other potentially relevant information about me: my interests include algebraic geometry, physics, computation, and much else besides. i'm 56 years old. there have been some published papers based on my ideas but they were not actually written by me and give only a distorted view of my actual ideas. i'm much better at communicating my ideas in other ways than by writing research papers, so writing a doctoral thesis is for me a diversion of my energies away from activities (such as teaching and research) more central to my work as a mathematician, but i'm willing to try it. all else being equal, i'd prefer colleagues with some understanding of and sympathy for my goals in this respect (or at least not outright hostility towards them). -james dolan email address: jdolan@math.ucr.edu [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]