Rostislav Grigorchuk

Rostislav Ivanovich Grigorchuk
Rostislav Grigorchuk (left)
Born	(1953-02-23) February 23, 1953 (age 64) Ternopil oblast, Ukraine (at time of birth USSR)
Nationality	Ukrainian
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	Texas A&M University
Alma mater	Moscow State University
Known for	research in geometric group theory, discovering the Grigorchuk group
Notable awards	Leroy P. Steele Prize (2015)

Rostislav Ivanovich Grigorchuk (Ukrainian: Ростислав Івaнович Григорчук, Russian: Ростисла́в Ива́нович Григорчу́к; b. February 23, 1953) is a Soviet and Ukrainian mathematician working in the area of group theory. He holds the rank of Distinguished Professor in the Mathematics Department of Texas A&M University. Grigorchuk is particularly well known for having constructed, in a 1984 paper,the first example of a finitely generated group of intermediate growth, thus answering an important problem posed by John Milnor in 1968. This group is now known as the Grigorchuk group and it is one of the important objects studied in geometric group theory, particularly in the study of branch groups, automata groups and iterated monodromy groups.

Grigorchuk was born on February 23, 1953 in Ternopil oblast, Ukraine (in 1953 part of the USSR). He received his undergraduate degree in 1975 from Moscow State University. He obtained a PhD (Candidate of Science) in Mathematics in 1978, also from Moscow State University, where his thesis advisor was A. M. Stepin. Grigorchuk received a habilitation (Doctor of Science) degree in Mathematics in 1985 at the Steklov Institute of Mathematics in Moscow. During the 1980s and 1990s, Rostislav Grigorchuk held positions at the Moscow State University of Transportation, and subsequently at the Steklov Institute of Mathematics and Moscow State University. In 2002 Grigorchuk joined the faculty of Texas A&M University as a Professor of Mathematics, and he was promoted to the rank of Distinguished Professor in 2008.