The papers in this collection were presented at the First Ahlfors-Bers Colloquium - a conference held in the tradition of Lars Ahlfors and Lipman Bers. These conferences have been perpetuated to honor and carry on their work in the field of complex analysis, which so influenced their students, colleagues, and a new generation of mathematicians. The papers cover complex analysis, Riemann surfaces, Teichmuller theory and hyperbolic manifolds: most of the works include original contributions to the field, and others survey various aspects of the field, including papers by Lennart Carleson, Clifford Earle, and Dennis Hejhal on the contributions of Lars Ahlfors.