As an undergraduate, Roggenkamp studied mathematics from 1960 to 1964 at the
University of Giessen. There in 1967 he received his PhD. His thesis
Darstellungen endlicher Gruppen in Polynombereichen (
Representations of finite groups in polynomial integral domains) was written under the supervision of
Hermann Boerner. As a postdoc, Roggenkamp was at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he studied under
Irving Reiner, and at the
University of Montreal. After four years as a professor at
Bielefeld University, he was appointed to the chair of algebra at the
University of Stuttgart. In 1986 Roggenkamp and Scott
proved their most famous theorem (published in 1987 in the
Annals of Mathematics). Their theorem states that given two
finite groups G and H, if G is
isomorphic to H then G is isomorphic to H, in the case where G and H are finite
p-groups over the
p-adic integers, and also in the case where G and H are finite
nilpotent groups. Their 1987 paper also established a very strong form of a
conjecture made by
Hans Zassenhaus. The papers of Roggenkamp and Scott were the basis for most developments which followed in the study of finite groups of units of integral group rings. Martin Hertweck, partly building on the techniques introduced by Roggenkamp and Scott for their counterexample, published a counterexample to the conjecture that the "integral isomorphism problem" can always be solved affirmatively. Roggenkamp was elected a member of the
Akademie gemeinnütziger Wissenschaften zu Erfurt (Erfurt Academy of Useful Sciences) and was made an honorary member of
Ovidius University of Constanța in Romania. ==Selected publications==