Support varieties and the Hochschild cohomology ring modulo nilpotence

This is a survey paper based on my talks at the 41st Symposium on Ring Theory and Representation Theory, held in Shizuoka University, Japan in September 2008, and will appear in the conference proceedings. The paper begins with a brief introduction to the use of Hochschild cohomology in developing the theory of support varieties for a module over an artin algebra, by Snashall and Solberg (Proc. London Math. Soc.(3) 88 (2004), 705-732). The paper then describes the current status of research concerning the structure of the Hochschild cohomology ring modulo nilpotence.