Stephanie van Willigenburg is a professor of mathematics at the University of British Columbia [1] whose research is in the field of algebraic combinatorics and concerns quasisymmetric functions. Together with James Haglund, Kurt Luoto and Sarah Mason, she introduced the quasisymmetric Schur functions, which form a basis for quasisymmetric functions. [2]
Van Willigenburg earned her Ph.D. in 1997 at the University of St. Andrews under the joint supervision of Edmund F. Robertson and Michael D. Atkinson, with a thesis titled The Descent Algebras of Coxeter Groups. [3]
Van Willigenburg was awarded the Krieger–Nelson Prize in 2017 [4] by the Canadian Mathematical Society. She was named to the 2023 class of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society, "for contributions to algebraic combinatorics, mentorship and exposition, and inclusive community building". [5]