Agata Smoktunowicz FRSE (born 12 October 1973) is a Polish mathematician who works as a professor at the University of Edinburgh. She is known for her research in abstract algebra, especially in noncommutative ring theory, where she solved several long-standing mathematical problems and conducted important examples of algebraic structures such as nil rings.Agata Smoktunowicz , European Women in Mathematics, retrieved 31 December 2014.Currculum vitae , 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.. For the attribution to Kaplansky, see . 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).. 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..Lam, T.Y., A First Course in Noncommutative Rings (2001), p.171..
Awards and honors 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,Fellows , Royal Society of Edinburgh, retrieved 31 December 2014. and in 2012, she became one of the inaugural fellows of the American Mathematical Society.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. She was awarded the Senior Whitehead Prize of the London Mathematical Society in 2023.
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. At the university of Edinburgh she is part of a Algebra and Number Theory research group.
Areas of research Smoktunowicz main area of research is algebra and number theory. She has published research in the areas of noncommutative ring theory applications, Nil rings, and Gelfand-Kirillov dimensions.
Selected publications
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“People A-Z.” School of Mathematics, 23 Apr. 2025, maths.ed.ac.uk/people/a-z?person=67. Accessed 16 Mar. 2026.
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