Ewa Ligocka

Ewa Ligocka(1947–2022) was a Polish mathematician specializing incomplex analysis,and a political activist.

Early life and education

Ligocka was born inKatowiceon October 13, 1947,the daughter of Polish photography critic and historian Alfred Ligocki. As a high school student under the tutelage ofTeodor Paliczka,she competed for Poland in theInternational Mathematical Olympiadin 1965.

She earned a master's degree at theUniversity of Warsawin 1970, and completed a Ph.D. there in 1973 under the supervision ofWiesław Żelazko.During this period, her research concerned the theory ofanalytic functionsontopological vector spaces.The story goes that, in 1972, she was the one to pluck and cook the live goose given toPer Enfloas the prize for solvingMazur's goose problem.

Career and later life

After completing her doctorate, Ligocka continued as a researcher at the University of Warsaw. As an assistant professor in 1976, she signed an open letter of protest regarding theJune 1976 protestsinRadomandUrsus.Despite the efforts of other mathematicians to protect her, this protest led to her transfer to a branch campus of the university inBiałystokand then, in 1977, her dismissal from the university.

Meanwhile, she had begun working with Maciej Skwarczyński on theBergman kernel,and by 1978 she began her research withMassachusetts Institute of Technologystudent Steven R. Bell on Fefferman's theorem on the smooth extension ofbiholomorphismsto the boundaries of their domains. This work, published inInventiones Mathematicaein 1980, already created a stir in Polish mathematics in the late 1970s, and in 1979 she was hired byCzesław Olechas a researcher at theInstitute of Mathematics of the Polish Academy of Sciences,without any political restrictions.

She completed ahabilitationin 1986,and in 1992 returned to the University of Warsaw as an associate professor.She was given the degree of professor in 1994.She retired in 2008,and died on October 28, 2022.

Recognition

Ligocka was the 1986 recipient of the Stanisław Zaremba Grand Prize of thePolish Mathematical Society.She and Steven R. Bell received the 1991Stefan Bergman Prizeof theAmerican Mathematical Society,given for their work on Fefferman's theorem.