Lisa Piccirillo facts for kids

Lisa Marie Piccirillo (born in 1990 or 1991) is an American mathematician. She holds a special teaching position at the University of Texas at Austin. Her work focuses on geometry and low-dimensional topology, which are types of math that study shapes and spaces.

In 2020, Lisa Piccirillo solved a very old math puzzle. She proved that the Conway knot is not a "smoothly slice" knot. This problem in knot theory had been unsolved for over 50 years. It was first thought of by a British mathematician named John Horton Conway.

From 2020 to 2024, she was also a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Early Life and Interests

Lisa Piccirillo grew up in a town called Greenwood, Maine. She went to Telstar Regional High School. Her mother was a middle school math teacher.

As a child, Lisa had many different hobbies. She enjoyed riding horses in a special style called dressage. She was also active in her church's youth group. In school, she took part in drama and played in the band.

Education Journey

Lisa Piccirillo earned her first degree, a Bachelor of Science in mathematics, from Boston College in 2013. Later, she got her PhD in low-dimensional topology in 2019. She studied at the University of Texas at Austin. Her main teacher there was John Luecke. After her PhD, she did more research at Brandeis University.

A professor from Boston College, Elisenda Grigsby, said that Lisa's creativity helped her succeed. She mentioned that Lisa was not like a "typical math genius" during her college years.

Solving the Conway Knot Puzzle

The Conway Knot

In math, a "knot" is not like a knot in a shoelace. Instead, it's a closed loop that is tangled in a three-dimensional space. Knot theory is the study of these tangled loops.

The Conway knot was named after John Horton Conway, who first described it in 1970. For a long time, mathematicians knew the Conway knot was "topologically slice." This means it could be untangled in a certain way if you could stretch and bend it without breaking.

However, the big question was whether it was "smoothly slice." This means if it could be a flat slice of a knot in a higher dimension (like a 4D space). This puzzle remained unsolved for half a century.

Lisa Piccirillo's Breakthrough

Lisa Piccirillo changed all of this with her work on the Conway knot. Her solution helped to complete the understanding of "slice knots" that have fewer than thirteen crossings. The Conway knot was the last one in this group that was not fully understood.

She used a special math tool called "Rasmussen's s-invariant" in her proof. Her work showed that the Conway knot is indeed not a smoothly slice knot.

Lisa first heard about the Conway knot problem in 2018. She was a graduate student at the time. She spent less than a week working on the knot in her free time. She wanted to "see what's so hard about this problem." She found the answer very quickly.

She later said that finding the answer was "quite surprising." She explained that mathematicians usually try to prove big, general ideas. But she had proved something about "just one knot." She added that even though she didn't care much about knots themselves, she cared about studying 3D and 4D spaces. It turns out that studying knots helps understand these spaces.

The Washington Post newspaper reported that her proof was "hailed as a thing of mathematical beauty." They also said her work could lead to new ways of understanding knots.

After her proof was published, Lisa Piccirillo was offered a teaching position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Awards and Recognition

Lisa Piccirillo has received several important awards for her work:

• In 2021, she was given one of three Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prizes. This award recognizes achievements by young women mathematicians.
• She also received a 2021 Clay Research Fellowship for her work in low-dimensional topology.
• In 2021, she was awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship.

Additionally, in 2020, a UK magazine called Prospect named Lisa as one of "The world's top 50 thinkers for the Covid-19 age."

See also

In Spanish: Lisa Piccirillo para niños