We address the semistable reduction conjecture of Abramovich and Karu: we prove that every surjective morphism of complex projective varieties can be modified to a semistable one. The key ingredient is a combinatorial result on triangulating lattice Cayley polytopes. Joint work with Karim Adiprasito and Michael Temkin.
The lecture consists of two parts: first 30 minutes an algebra-geometric introduction by Michael Temkin, and then a one hour talk by Gaku Liu about the key combinatorial result.