Lisa Piccirillo

“{{cite journal|title=From Small Town Girl To Breakout Star in Mathematics|journal=Turing, YouTube|date=March 3, 2026|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVFRnzMWEcE}}”

“Richard Borcherds, {{cite journal|title=Is the Conway knot slice? (After Lisa Piccirillo)|date=February 4, 2021|journal=Richard E Borcherds, YouTube|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XewXN4i5Or4}}”

“It’s really [three- and four-dimensional shapes] that are exciting for me, but the study of these things is deeply linked with knot theory.”

“I didn’t allow myself to work on it during the day,” she said, “because I didn’t consider it to be real math. I thought it was, like, my homework.”

“A {{w|Knot theory|knot}} is said to be slice if it bounds a {{w|Embedding#Differential topology|smooth properly embedded}} {{w|Disk (mathematics)|disk}} in the {{w|Ball (mathematics)|4-ball}}. We demonstrate that the {{w|Conway knot}}, 11n34 in the Rolfsen tables, is not slice. This completes the classification of slice knots under 13 {{w|Knot theory#Knot diagrams|crossings}}, and gives the first example of a non-slice knot which is both topologically slice and a positive mutant of a slice knot.”