In this thesis, we investigate two expressions for symmetric group characters: Kerov?s universal character polynomials and Stanley?s character polynomials. We give a new explicit form for Kerov?s polynomials, which exactly evaluate the characters of the symmetric group scaled by degree and a constant. We use this explicit expression to obtain specific information about Kerov polynomials, including partial answers to positivity questions. We then use the expression obtained for Kerov?s polynomials to obtain results about Stanley?s character polynomials.

In this thesis, we investigate two expressions for symmetric group characters: Kerov?s universal character polynomials and Stanley?s character polynomials. We give a new explicit form for Kerov?s polynomials, which exactly evaluate the characters of the symmetric group scaled by degree and a constant. We use this explicit expression to obtain specific information about Kerov polynomials, including partial answers to positivity questions. We then use the expression obtained for Kerov?s polynomials to obtain results about Stanley?s character polynomials.

We obtain a tight upper bound for the genus of a partition, and calculate the number of partitions of maximal genus. The generating series for genus zero and genus one rooted hypermonopoles is obtained in closed form by specializing the genus series for hypermaps. We discuss the connection between partitions and rooted hypermonopoles, and suggest how a generating series for genus one partitions may be obtained via the generating series for genus one rooted hypermonopoles. An involution on the poset of genus one partitions is constructed from the associated hypermonopole diagrams, showing that the poset is rank-symmetric. Also, a symmetric chain decomposition is constructed for the poset of genus one partitions, which consequently shows that it is strongly Sperner.

We obtain a tight upper bound for the genus of a partition, and calculate the number of partitions of maximal genus. The generating series for genus zero and genus one rooted hypermonopoles is obtained in closed form by specializing the genus series for hypermaps. We discuss the connection between partitions and rooted hypermonopoles, and suggest how a generating series for genus one partitions may be obtained via the generating series for genus one rooted hypermonopoles. An involution on the poset of genus one partitions is constructed from the associated hypermonopole diagrams, showing that the poset is rank-symmetric. Also, a symmetric chain decomposition is constructed for the poset of genus one partitions, which consequently shows that it is strongly Sperner.