Sinead Lyle University of Sydney The Specht modules of the symmetric groups Friday 29th August, 12:05-12:55pm, Carslaw 373. The ordinary irreducible modules of the symmetric group S_n are indexed by the set of partitions of n, and are known as the Specht modules. When working over a field of characteristic zero, these modules are well-understood; however when reduced modulo a prime p, little is generally known about their structure or composition factors. We will give a definition of the Specht modules, and discuss some of their interesting properties before presenting some recent results.