Orbifolds and Their Spectra

This expository article is an expanded version of a minicourse presented at a workshop preceding the International Conference on Spectral Geometry at Dartmouth College. After a self-contained presentation of the concepts of orbifolds, their singular sets, Riemannian structures, and orbibundles, the article discusses and partially surveys inverse spectral results for the Laplace operator on a compact Riemannian orbifold.