Rate My Professor Ana Garcia Lecuona

Professor Ana Garcia Lecuona is Professor of Mathematics in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Glasgow, a position she has held since August 2023, following promotions from Senior Lecturer (2020–2023) and Lecturer (2018–2020). Previously, she was Maître de Conférences at Aix-Marseille Université from 2012 to 2018, and held postdoctoral positions at Penn State University (2011–2012) and École Normale Supérieure de Lyon (2010–2011). Her academic background includes a PhD in Mathematics from Università di Pisa in 2010, supervised by Paolo Lisca, with the thesis "On the slice-ribbon conjecture for Montesinos knots"; a Master in Mathematical Research from Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 2007; and a Degree in Mathematics from the same institution in 2006.

Ana Garcia Lecuona's primary research interest is low-dimensional topology, with emphasis on interactions between dimensions 3 and 4, particularly the slice-ribbon conjecture, which concerns knots in the 3-sphere bounding embedded disks in the 4-ball. Her work also covers knot theory, contact topology, and symplectic topology. Notable publications include "Fibered ribbon pretzels" with Andy Wand (Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society, 2026), "Slopes and concordance of links" with Alex Degtyarev and Vincent Florens (Algebraic and Geometric Topology, 2024), "Slopes and signatures of links" with the same co-authors (Fundamenta Mathematicae, 2022), "Cohomology Groups for Spaces of Twelve-Fold Tilings" with Nicolas Bédaride and Franz Gähler (International Mathematics Research Notices, 2022), "On the slice-ribbon conjecture for pretzel knots" (Algebraic and Geometric Topology, 2015), and her thesis publication "On the slice-ribbon conjecture for Montesinos knots" (Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, 2012). She has supervised PhD students, including Elizaveta Lokteva and Tanushree Shah, both completing in 2023 at the University of Glasgow. Major awards include the EPSRC New Investigator Award (EP/T028408/1, 2021–2023), Prime d’encadrement doctoral et de recherche (2017–2020), and Délégations CNRS (2017–2018). Lecuona serves on the EPSRC Peer Review College (since 2022), as Glasgow representative for the Edinburgh Mathematical Society (2019–2022), and on the LMS Committee for Women and Diversity in Mathematics. She has delivered invited lectures at venues such as Oberwolfach (2023), the European Congress of Mathematics (2021), and Women and Maths: Geometric Topology (2023).