Władysław Ślebodziński (Polish pronunciation: [vwaˈdɨswaf ɕlɛbɔˈdʑiɲskʲi]) (February 6, 1884 – January 3, 1972) was a Polish mathematician.

Władysław Ślebodziński was born in Pysznica, Poland and educated at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków (1903-1908) where he subsequently held a teaching position until 1921.^[2] After 1921, he lectured at the State High School of Mechanical Engineering Poznań and in the thirties, he was a visiting lecturer at the Poznań University and Warsaw University until 1939. During the Second World War, he gave underground lectures, leading to his imprisonment. He survived three German concentration camps: Auschwitz (1942 - 1945), where he gave underground university-level lectures as prisoner no. 79053, Gross-Rosen and Nordhausen.^[3]

In 1945 he became a joint professor at Wrocław University and at the Wrocław University of Technology, and from 1951 he was a professor at the Wrocław University of Technology. With Bronisław Knaster, Edward Marczewski and Hugo Steinhaus, he was a co-founder of the mathematical journal Colloquium Mathematicum.

From 1949 until 1960, he was a Professor of the Institute of Mathematics of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Władysław Ślebodziński's main interest was differential geometry. In 1931,^[4] he introduced the definition of the Lie derivative, although according to J.A. Schouten,^[5] the term Lie derivative occurred first in a two-part paper by van Dantzig.^[6] He was the advisor of 11 PhD theses.^[1] He was also doctor honoris causa at the Wrocław University of Technology (1965), at the Poznań University of Technology (1967), and at the Wrocław University (1970). Prof. Ślebodziński was a member, President (1961-1963) and honorary member of the Polish Mathematical Society.

He died in Wrocław in 1972 and is buried in the Wrocław, Cemetery Sępolno.^[7]

• Kraków School of Mathematics