Karen Smith is a professor of Mathematics and currently the Chair of Michigan Math. Her favorite part of being a math professor is working with students and postdocs on research in algebraic geometry and commutative algebra. Originally a “Jersey girl,” Karen has been at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor close to four decades. Besides doing math, she really enjoys the company of her husband Kai Rajala and adult kids including the “adopted” ones, spending time in nature and going to Finland.
Photo is from the 2002-2003 Special Year in Commutative Algebra, with co-organizers Lucho Avramov, Bernd Sturmfels, and Craig Huneke, plus MSRI Director David Eisenbud. Irena Swanson (seated) made the quilt!
Professor Smith is a frequent visitor to the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. She has taught algebraic geometry as well as Algebra 2: Field and Galois Theory and Resolution of Singularities there, the latter at the Jyväskylä Summer School in 2016.
Bios written by others, not approved by me but mostly accurate: A brief Bio and another longer one,
For more information on Karen’s life and career up to 2002, see the longer autobiographical essay in the book “Complexities: Women in Mathematics.” Edited by Bettye Anne Case and Anne M. Leggett, published in 2005 by Princeton University Press.
Professor Smith has twice organized Special Years in Commutative Algebra at Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley California, spending time there with support from the Clay Foundation.
The Hochster Conference and some pictures taken by Manuel Blickle.