*talk will be in person only*

I will talk about several results on Hecke algebras attached to Bernstein blocks of (arbitrary) reductive p-adic groups, where we construct a local Langlands correspondence for these Bernstein blocks. Our techniques draw inspirations from the foundational works of Deligne, Kazhdan, Lusztig etc.

As an application, we prove the (classical) Local Langlands Conjecture for G_2, which is the first known case in literature of (classical) LLC for exceptional groups. Our correspondence satisfies an expected property on cuspidal support, which is compatible with the generalized Springer correspondence, along with a list of characterizing properties including the stabilization of character sums, formal degree property etc. In particular, we obtain (not necessarily unipotent) "mixed" L-packets containing "F-singular" supercuspidals and non-supercuspidals. Such "mixed" L-packets had been elusive up until this point and very little was known prior to our work. I will give explicit examples of such mixed L-packets in terms of Deligne-Lusztig theory and Kazhdan-Lusztig parametrization.

If time permits, I will explain how to pin down certain choices in the construction of the correspondence using stability of L-packets; one key input is a homogeneity result due to Waldspurger and DeBacker. Moreover, I will mention how to adapt our general strategy to construct explicit LLC for other reductive groups, such as GSp(4), Sp(4), etc. Such explicit description of the L-packets has been useful in number-theoretic applications, e.g. modularity lifting questions.

Various parts of this talk are based on joint works with various collaborators, and attributions will be made clear throughout the talk.