Agata Smoktunowicz

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Agata Smoktunowicz

| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1973|10|12|mf=y}}

| nationality =

| ethnicity =

| field = Mathematician

| alma_mater = University of Warsaw, Polish Academy of Sciences (PhD)

| work_institutions = University of Edinburgh

| doctoral_advisor = Edmund Puczyłowski

| thesis_title = Radicals of polynomial rings

| thesis_year = 2000

| doctoral_students =

| known_for =

| prizes = Whitehead Prize of the London Mathematical Society (2006)
European Mathematical Society Prize (2008)
Sir Edmund Whittaker Memorial Prize (2009)
Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2009)
Fellow of the American Mathematical Society (2012)
Senior Whitehead Prize (2023)

| religion =

| footnotes =

}}

Agata Smoktunowicz FRSE (born 12 October 1973) is a Polish mathematician who works as a professor at the University of Edinburgh. Her research is in abstract algebra.[http://www.europeanwomeninmaths.org/women-in-math/portrait/agata-smoktunowicz Agata Smoktunowicz] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140826184527/http://www.europeanwomeninmaths.org/women-in-math/portrait/agata-smoktunowicz |date=26 August 2014 }}, European Women in Mathematics, retrieved 31 December 2014.[http://www.impan.pl/User/agatasm/ Currculum vitae] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141230045535/http://www.impan.pl/User/agatasm/ |date=30 December 2014 }}, retrieved 31 December 2014.

Contributions

Smoktunowicz's contributions to mathematics include constructing noncommutative nil rings, solving a "famous problem" formulated in 1970 by Irving Kaplansky.{{harvtxt|Smoktunowicz|2002}}. For the attribution to Kaplansky, see {{MR|1880660}}.

She proved the Artin–Stafford gap conjecture according to which the Gelfand–Kirillov dimension of a graded domain cannot fall within the open interval (2,3).{{harvtxt|Smoktunowicz|2006}}. She also found an example of a nil ideal of a ring R that does not lift to a nil ideal of the polynomial ring R[X], disproving a conjecture of Amitsur and hinting that the Köthe conjecture might be false.{{harvtxt|Smoktunowicz|2000}}.Lam, T.Y., A First Course in Noncommutative Rings (2001), p.171.{{citation

| last = Nielsen | first = Pace P.

| doi = 10.1080/00927872.2012.695838

| issue = 11

| journal = Communications in Algebra

| mr = 3169522

| pages = 4339–4350

| title = Simplifying Smoktunowicz's extraordinary example

| volume = 41

| year = 2013| s2cid = 9359974

}}.

Awards and honours

Smoktunowicz was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 2006. She won the Whitehead Prize of the London Mathematical Society in 2006, the European Mathematical Society Prize in 2008, and the Sir Edmund Whittaker Memorial Prize of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society in 2009. In 2009, she was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh,[http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/lists/fellows.pdf Fellows] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160330014912/https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/lists/fellows.pdf |date=30 March 2016 }}, Royal Society of Edinburgh, retrieved 31 December 2014. and in 2012, she became one of the inaugural fellows of the American Mathematical Society.[https://www.ams.org/profession/fellows-list List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society], retrieved 31 December 2014. She also won the Polish Academy of Sciences annual research prize in 2018.{{Cite web|url=https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/agata-smoktunowicz(d110ddda-8259-4c1b-9af5-dbf262f12b4d)/prizes.html|title=Agata Smoktunowicz - Prizes - Edinburgh Research Explorer|website=www.research.ed.ac.uk|access-date=2019-01-16}} She was awarded the Senior Whitehead Prize of the London Mathematical Society in 2023.{{Cite web |title=List of LMS prize winners {{!}} London Mathematical Society |url=https://www.lms.ac.uk/prizes/list-lms-prize-winners#SWPrize |access-date=2024-07-27 |website=www.lms.ac.uk}}

Education and career

Smoktunowicz earned a master's degree from the University of Warsaw in 1997, a PhD in 1999 from the Institute of Mathematics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and a habilitation in 2007, again from the Polish Academy of Sciences. After temporary positions at Yale University and the University of California, San Diego, she joined the University of Edinburgh in 2005, and was promoted to professor there in 2007.