Krystyna Kuperberg

Template:Short description Template:Infobox scientist Krystyna Maria Kuperberg (born Krystyna M. Trybulec; 17 July 1944) is a Polish-American mathematician who currently works as a professor of mathematics at Auburn University, where she was formerly an Alumni Professor of Mathematics.<ref name="bwm">"Krystyna Kuperberg", Biographies of Women Mathematicians, Agnes Scott College, retrieved 2014-06-24</ref><ref name="mactutor">Template:MacTutor Biography</ref><ref name="awm">Krystyna M. Kuperberg Template:Webarchive, Profiles of Women in Mathematics, Association for Women in Mathematics, retrieved 2014-06-24.</ref>

Early life and family

Her parents, Jan W. and Barbara H. Trybulec, were pharmacists and owned a pharmacy in Tarnów. Her older brother is Andrzej Trybulec. Her husband Włodzimierz Kuperberg and her son Greg Kuperberg are also mathematicians,<ref name="mactutor"/><ref name="awm"/> while her daughter Anna Kuperberg is a photographer.<ref name="awm"/><ref>Featured photographer: Anna Kuperberg, Wedding Photojournalist Association, retrieved 2014-06-24.</ref>

Education and career

After attending high school in Gdańsk, she entered the University of Warsaw in 1962, where she studied mathematics. Her first mathematics course was taught by Andrzej Mostowski; later she attended topology lectures of Karol Borsuk and became fascinated by topology.<ref name="mactutor"/><ref name="awm"/>

After obtaining her undergraduate degree, Kuperberg began graduate studies at Warsaw under Borsuk, but stopped after earning a master's degree.<ref name="mactutor"/><ref name="awm"/> She left Poland in 1969 with her young family to live in Sweden, then moved to the United States in 1972.<ref name="bwm"/><ref name="mactutor"/><ref name="awm"/> She finished her Ph.D. in 1974, from Rice University, under the supervision of William Jaco.<ref name="mactutor"/><ref>Template:MathGenealogy</ref><ref name="awm"/> In the same year, both she and her husband were appointed to the faculty of Auburn University.<ref name="mactutor"/><ref name="awm"/> From 1996 to 1998, Kuperberg served as an American Mathematical Society Council member at large.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1998, she was elected to the AMS Editorial Boards Committee.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Contributions

In 1987 she solved a problem of Bronisław Knaster concerning bi-homogeneity of continua.<ref name="mactutor"/><ref name="awm"/> In the 1980s she became interested in fixed points and topological aspects of dynamical systems. In 1989 Kuperberg and Coke Reed solved a problem posed by Stanislaw Ulam in the Scottish Book.<ref>A Dynamical System on R³ with Uniformly Bounded Trajectories and No Compact Trajectories, August 1989, retrieved 2015-11-11.</ref> The solution to that problem led to her 1993 work in which she constructed a smooth counterexample to the Seifert conjecture.<ref name="bwm"/><ref name="mactutor"/><ref name="awm"/> She has since continued to work in dynamical systems.<ref name="awm"/>

Recognition

In 1995 Kuperberg received the Alfred Jurzykowski Prize from the Kościuszko Foundation.<ref name="mactutor"/><ref name="awm"/> Her major lectures include an American Mathematical Society 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.<ref name="bwm"/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 2012 she became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.<ref>List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society, retrieved 2013-01-27.</ref> In 2025, she was elected as a Foreign Member of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Selected publications

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