Krystyna M. Kuperberg (born ''Krystyna M. Trybulec''; 17 July 1944) is a Polish-American

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

who currently works as a professor of mathematics at Auburn University, where she was formerly an Alumni Professor of Mathematics."Krystyna Kuperberg", Biographies of Women Mathematicians
Agnes Scott College, retrieved 2014-06-24Krystyna M. Kuperberg
, Profiles of Women in Mathematics, Association for Women in Mathematics, retrieved 2014-06-24.

Early life and family

Her parents, Jan W. and Barbara H. Trybulec, were pharmacists and owned a pharmacy in

Tarnów Tarnów () is a city in southeastern Poland with 105,922 inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of 269,000 inhabitants. The city is situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship since 1999. From 1975 to 1998, it was the capital of the Tarn� ...

. Her older brother is

Andrzej Trybulec Andrzej Wojciech Trybulec (29 January 1941 in Kraków, Poland – 11 September 2013 in Białystok, Poland) was a Polish mathematician and computer scientist noted for work on the Mizar system. Early years His parents Jan W. Trybulec and Barbara ...

. Her husband Włodzimierz Kuperberg and her son

Greg Kuperberg Greg Kuperberg (born July 4, 1967) is a Polish-born American mathematician known for his contributions to geometric topology, quantum algebra, and combinatorics. Kuperberg is a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Davis.Greg ...

are also mathematicians, while her daughter Anna Kuperberg is a photographer.

Education and career

After attending high school in Gdańsk, she entered the

University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw ( pl, Uniwersytet Warszawski, la, Universitas Varsoviensis) is a public university in Warsaw, Poland. Established in 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country offering 37 different fields o ...

in 1962, where she studied mathematics. Her first mathematics course was taught by Andrzej Mostowski; later she attended

topology In mathematics, topology (from the Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a geometric object that are preserved under continuous deformations, such as stretching, twisting, crumpling, and bending; that is, without closing ...

lectures of

Karol Borsuk Karol Borsuk (May 8, 1905 – January 24, 1982) was a Polish mathematician. His main interest was topology, while he obtained significant results also in functional analysis. Borsuk introduced the theory of '' absolute retracts'' (ARs) and ''abs ...

and became fascinated by topology. After obtaining her undergraduate degree, Kuperberg began graduate studies at Warsaw under Borsuk, but stopped after earning a master's degree. She left Poland in 1969 with her young family to live in Sweden, then moved to the United States in 1972. She finished her Ph.D. in 1974, from

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a private research university in Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranked among the top universities ...

, under the supervision of William Jaco. In the same year, both she and her husband were appointed to the faculty of Auburn University.

Contributions

In 1987 she solved a problem of

Bronisław Knaster Bronisław Knaster (22 May 1893 – 3 November 1980) was a Polish mathematician; from 1939 a university professor in Lwów and from 1945 in Wrocław. He is known for his work in point-set topology and in particular for his discoveries in 1922 of ...

concerning bi-homogeneity of continua. In the 1980s she became interested in fixed points and topological aspects of

dynamical system In mathematics, a dynamical system is a system in which a function describes the time dependence of a point in an ambient space. Examples include the mathematical models that describe the swinging of a clock pendulum, the flow of water in ...

s. In 1989 Kuperberg and Coke Reed solved a problem posed by Stan Ulam in the Scottish Book. The solution to that problem led to her 1993 work in which she constructed a smooth counterexample to the Seifert conjecture. She has since continued to work in dynamical systems.

Recognition

In 1995 Kuperberg received the Alfred Jurzykowski Prize from the

Kościuszko Foundation The Kosciuszko Foundation is a charitable foundation based in New York City. It was created by Stephen Mizwa to fund programs that promote Polish-American intellectual and artistic exchange. History The Polish American Scholarship Committee wa ...

. Her major lectures include an

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

Plenary Lecture in March 1995, a Mathematical Association of America Plenary Lecture in January 1996, and an International Congress of Mathematicians invited talk in 1998. In 2012 she became a fellow of the

.List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society
retrieved 2013-01-27.

Selected publications

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kuperberg, Krystyna Polish emigrants to the United States American women mathematicians Polish women mathematicians 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians 20th-century Polish mathematicians 21st-century Polish mathematicians Topologists 1944 births Living people People from Tarnów University of Warsaw alumni Rice University alumni Auburn University faculty Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Dynamical systems theorists 20th-century women mathematicians 21st-century women mathematicians 20th-century American women 21st-century American women 20th-century Polish women