In January 1989 a Workshop on Algorithms, Word Problems and Classi-
fication in Combinatorial Group Theory was held at MSRl. This was part
of a year-long program on Geometry and Combinatorial Group Theory or-
ganised by Adyan, Brown, Gersten and Stallings. The organisers of the
workshop were G. Baumslag, F.B. Cannonito and C.F. Miller III. The pa-
pers in this volume are an outgrowth of lectures at this conference. The
first three papers are concerned with decision problems and the next two
with finitely presented simple groups. These are followed by two papers
dealing with combinatorial geometry and homology. The remaining papers
are about automatic groups and related topics. Some of these papers are,
in essence, announcements of new results. The complexity of some of them
are such that neither the Editors nor the Reviewers feel that they can
take responsibility for vouching for the completeness of the proofs
involved. We wish to thank the staff at MSRl for their help in
organising the workshop and this volume.