Rate My Professor Ian Agol

Agol's research centers on low-dimensional topology, 3-manifold topology, hyperbolic geometry, and geometric group theory. His groundbreaking contributions include proofs related to the tameness conjecture, virtual Haken conjecture, virtual fibering conjecture, and Gordon’s conjecture on knot concordance. These achievements have significantly advanced understanding in hyperbolic 3-manifolds and related fields. Notable publications include 'The virtual Haken conjecture, with an appendix by Agol, Daniel Groves, and Jason Manning' (Doc. Math., 2013), 'Criteria for virtual fibering' (J. Topol., 2008), 'Lower bounds on volumes of hyperbolic Haken 3-manifolds' with Peter A. Storm and William P. Thurston (J. Amer. Math. Soc., 2007), 'Presentation length and Simon's conjecture' with Yi Liu (J. Amer. Math. Soc., 2012), and 'An alternate proof of Wise's malnormal special quotient theorem' with Daniel Groves and Jason Fox Manning (Forum Math. Pi, 2016). He has supervised over a dozen Ph.D. theses on topics such as ribbon concordances, veering triangulations, and Dehn fillings. Agol's honors include the 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics, 2013 Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry, 2009 Clay Research Award, election to the National Academy of Sciences in 2016, election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2025, Simons Investigator award from 2015 to 2025, and James H. Simons Chair from 2016 to 2021. He has served as editor for Forum of Mathematics Σ, Geometry and Topology, and Journal of Topology, and as associate editor for the Journal of the American Mathematical Society and Annals of Mathematics.