List of female mathematicians
Encyclopedia
The majority of mathematicians are male, although more women have entered mathematics since World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Women are still a small minority of notables in mathematics and neighboring branches of science such as physics. A number of prizes instituted by the AMS and other mathematical societies are aimed at changing this situation.
Prominent female mathematicians have included:
A
- Tatyana Afanasyeva (1876–1964)
- Maria Gaetana AgnesiMaria Gaetana AgnesiMaria Gaetana Agnesi was an Italian linguist, mathematician, and philosopher. Agnesi is credited with writing the first book discussing both differential and integral calculus. She was an honorary member of the faculty at the University of Bologna...
(1718–1799) - Grace Alele-WilliamsGrace Alele-WilliamsGrace Alele-Williams, made history as the first Nigerian woman to become the head of a Nigerian university, the University of Benin....
(1932– ) - Florence Eliza Allen (1876–1960)
- Annie Dale Biddle AndrewsAnnie Dale Biddle AndrewsAnnie Dale Biddle Andrews , born in Hanford, California to Samuel E. Biddle and A. A. Biddle, was the first woman to earn a Ph. D...
(1885–1940) - Winifred AspreyWinifred AspreyWinifred "Tim" Alice Asprey was an American mathematician and computer scientist. She was one of only around 200 women to earn PhDs in mathematics from American universities during the 1940s, a period of women's underrepresentation in mathematics at this level.She was involved in developing the...
(1917–2007) - Hertha Marks AyrtonHertha Marks AyrtonPhoebe Sarah Hertha Ayrton, née Marks was an English engineer, mathematician and inventor.- Life and work :...
(1854–1923)
B
- Clara Latimer Bacon (1866–1948)
- Grace Marie Bareis (1875–1962)
- Nina BariNina BariNina Karlovna Bari was a Soviet mathematician known for her work on trigonometric series. She was killed by a train in the Moscow Metro, and her colleagues speculated that she committed suicide, prompted by the death of her mentor Nikolai Luzin ten years earlier, a man who may have been her lover....
(1901–1961) - Ruth Aaronson BariRuth Aaronson BariRuth Aaronson Bari was an American mathematician known for her work in graph theory and homomorphisms. The daughter of Polish-Jewish immigrants to the U.S., she was a professor at George Washington University beginning in 1966...
(1917–2005) - Mabel Schmeiser Barnes (1905–1993)
- Charlotte Barnum (1860–1934)
- Lida Barrett (1927– )
- Agnes Sime BaxterAgnes Sime BaxterAgnes Sime Baxter was a Canadian-born mathematician. She studied at Dalhousie University, receiving her BA in 1891, and her MA in 1892. She received her Ph.D...
(1870–1917) - Lulu Hofmann Bechtolsheim (1902–1989)
- Alexandra BellowAlexandra BellowAlexandra Bellow , is a mathematician from Bucharest, Romania, who has made substantial contributions to the fields of ergodic theory, probability and analysis.-Biography:...
(1935– ) - Suzan Rose Benedict (1873–1942)
- Elizabeth Ruth Bennett (1880–1972)
- Dorothy Lewis BernsteinDorothy Lewis BernsteinDorothy Lewis Bernstein was an American mathematician known for her work in applied mathematics, statistics, computer programming, and her research on the Laplace transform....
(1914–1988) - Vasanti N. Bhat-NayakVasanti N. Bhat-NayakVasanti N. Bhat-Nayak was a professor of combinatorics and head of the department of mathematics, University of Mumbai. Vasanti Nayak was known for her work in BIBD designs, bivariegated graphs, graceful graphs, graph equations and frequency partitions.Vasanti Bhat a Goud Saraswat Brahmin was...
(1938–2009) - Joan BirmanJoan BirmanJoan Sylvia Lyttle Birman is an American mathematician, specializing in braid theory and knot theory. Her book Braids, Links, and Mapping Class Groups has become a standard introduction, with many of today's researchers having learned the subject through it...
(1927– ) - Gertrude BlanchGertrude BlanchGertrude Blanch was an American mathematician who did pioneering work in numerical analysis and computation.Blanch was born Gittel Kaimowitz in Kolno, Russia , arrived in the United States as a child, and attended public schools in New York City. She spent fourteen years as a clerk, saving money...
(1897–1996) - Lenore BlumLenore BlumLenore Blum is a distinguished professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon. She received her Ph.D. in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1968. Her dissertation was on Generalized Algebraic Structures and her advisor was Gerald Sacks...
(1942– ) - Alicia Boole StottAlicia Boole StottAlicia Boole Stott was the third daughter of George Boole and Mary Everest Boole, born in Cork, Ireland. Before marrying Walter Stott, an actuary, in 1890, she was known as Alicia Boole...
(1860–1940) - Mary Everest BooleMary Everest BooleMary Everest Boole was a self-taught mathematician who is best known as an author of didactic works on mathematics, such as Philosophy and Fun of Algebra, and as the wife of fellow mathematician George Boole...
(1832–1916) - Valentina BorokValentina BorokValentina Mikhailovna Borok was a Soviet Ukrainian mathematician. She is mainly known for her work on partial differential equations.- Life :...
(1931–2004) - Marjorie Lee BrowneMarjorie Lee BrowneMarjorie Lee Browne was a notable mathematics educator, the second African-American woman to receive a doctoral degree in the U.S., and one of the first black women to receive a doctorate in mathematics in the U.S....
(1914–1979) - Kathrin BringmannKathrin BringmannKathrin Bringmann is a number theorist in the University of Cologne, Germany and the University of Minnesota, USA who has made fundamental contributions to the theory of mock theta functions. She has been awarded...
(1977- ) - Josephine E. Burns (1887–1969)
C
- Mary CartwrightMary CartwrightDame Mary Lucy Cartwright DBE FRS was a leading 20th-century British mathematician. She was born in Aynho, Northamptonshire where her father was the vicar and died in Cambridge, England...
(1900–1998) - Sun-Yung Alice ChangSun-Yung Alice ChangAlice Chang is a Chinese American mathematician specializing in aspects of mathematical analysis ranging from harmonic analysis and partial differential equations to differential geometry. She is a professor of mathematics and chair of the department at Princeton University.-Life:Chang was born in...
(1948– ) - Émilie du ChâteletÉmilie du Châtelet-Early life:Du Châtelet was born on 17 December 1706 in Paris, the only daughter of six children. Three brothers lived to adulthood: René-Alexandre , Charles-Auguste , and Elisabeth-Théodore . Her eldest brother, René-Alexandre, died in 1720, and the next brother, Charles-Auguste, died in 1731...
(1706–1749) - Fan ChungFan ChungFan Rong K Chung Graham , known professionally as Fan Chung, is a mathematician who works mainly in the areas of spectral graph theory, extremal graph theory and random graphs, in particular...
(1949– ) - Marianna CsörnyeiMarianna CsörnyeiMarianna Csörnyei is a Hungarian mathematician. She works in real analysis, geometric measure theory, and geometric nonlinear functional analysis. She proved the equivalence of the zero measure notions of infinite dimensional Banach spaces.She received her doctorate from Eötvös Loránd University...
(1975– ) - Marie CurieMarie CurieMarie Skłodowska-Curie was a physicist and chemist famous for her pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first person honored with two Nobel Prizes—in physics and chemistry...
(1867–1934)
D
- Ingrid DaubechiesIngrid DaubechiesIngrid Daubechies is a Belgian physicist and mathematician. She was between 2004 and 2011 the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor in the mathematics and applied mathematics departments at Princeton University. In January 2011 she moved to Duke University as a Professor in mathematics. She is the first...
(1954– ) - Florence Nightingale DavidFlorence Nightingale DavidFlorence Nightingale David, also known as F. N. David was an English statistician, born in Ivington, Herefordshire, England...
(1909–1993) - Agnes Meyer DriscollAgnes Meyer DriscollAgnes Meyer Driscoll was, known as Miss Aggie or Madame X, an Americancryptanalyst during both World War I and World War II.-Early years:...
(1889–1971)
H
- Christine HamillChristine HamillChristine Mary Hamill was an English mathematician who specialized in group theory and finite geometry. After receiving her Ph.D...
(1923–1956) - Louise HayLouise Hay (mathematician)- Biography :Louise Hay was born in Metz, Lorraine, in 1935. Her family immigrated to New York, in 1946. Louise Hay was a founding member of the Association for Women in Mathematics. Her master's thesis was "An Axiomatization of the Infinitely Many-Valued Predicate Calculus." In 1990 the AWM...
(1935–1989) - Caroline HerschelCaroline HerschelCaroline Lucretia Herschel was a German-British astronomer, the sister of astronomer Sir Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel with whom she worked throughout both of their careers. Her most significant contribution to astronomy was the discovery of several comets and in particular the periodic comet...
(1750–1848) - Grace HopperGrace HopperRear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper was an American computer scientist and United States Navy officer. A pioneer in the field, she was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, and developed the first compiler for a computer programming language...
(1906–1992) - Susan HowsonSusan HowsonSusan Howson is a British mathematician at the University of Nottingham who worked on algebraic number theory and arithmetic geometry....
(1973– ) - Hypatia of AlexandriaHypatia of AlexandriaHypatia was an Egyptian Neoplatonist philosopher who was the first notable woman in mathematics. As head of the Platonist school at Alexandria, she also taught philosophy and astronomy...
(died 415)
K
- Carol KarpCarol KarpCarol Karp, née Carol Ruth Vander Velde , was an American mathematician of Dutch ancestry, best known for her work on infinitary logic...
(1926–1972) - Linda KeenLinda KeenLinda Jo Goldway Keen is a mathematician and Professor of Mathematics and Computer science at Lehman College and the Graduate Center of City University of New York where she has worked since 1965. As a high school student she attended the Bronx High School of Science...
(1940- ) - Lyudmila Keldysh (1904–1976)
- Frances KirwanFrances KirwanFrances Clare Kirwan, FRS is a British mathematician, currently a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford.Educated at Oxford High School, she studied at the University of Cambridge. She took a D.Phil at Oxford in 1984, supervised by Michael Atiyah...
(1959- ) - Nancy KopellNancy KopellNancy Jane Kopell is an American mathematician, William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor at Boston University, and Co-Director, Center for BioDynamics.She grew up in the Bronx....
(1942– ) - Sofia KovalevskayaSofia KovalevskayaSofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya , was the first major Russian female mathematician, responsible for important original contributions to analysis, differential equations and mechanics, and the first woman appointed to a full professorship in Northern Europe.She was also one of the first females to...
(1850–1891) - Cecilia KriegerCecilia KriegerCypra Cecilia Krieger-Dunaij was an Austro-Hungarian -born mathematician of Jewish ancestry who lived and worked in Canada....
(1894–1974) - Krystyna Kuperberg (1944-)
L
- Olga Aleksandrovna LadyzhenskayaOlga Aleksandrovna LadyzhenskayaOlga Aleksandrovna Ladyzhenskaya was a Soviet and Russian mathematician. She was known for her work on partial differential equations and fluid dynamics...
(1922–2004) - Judith Q. LongyearJudith Q. LongyearJudith Querida Longyear was an American mathematician and professor.-Professional overview:*Interest areas included: Graph Theory; Combinatorics*Member of the American Mathematical Society...
(1938–1995) - Ada LovelaceAda LovelaceAugusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace , born Augusta Ada Byron, was an English writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the analytical engine...
(1815–1852)
M
- Jessie MacWilliamsJessie MacWilliamsFlorence Jessie MacWilliams was an English mathematician who contributed to the field of coding theory. She was born in Stoke-on-Trent, England and studied at the University of Cambridge, receiving her BA in 1938 and her MA in the following year. She moved to the United States in 1939 and studied...
(1917–1990) - Dusa McDuffDusa McDuffDusa McDuff is an English mathematician. She was born in London, England as the daughter of the noted biologist Conrad Hal Waddington. Her mother, Justin, born Justin Blanco White, was an architect, while her maternal grandmother was the feminist Amber Reeves, a lover of H.G. Wells and an author...
(1945– ) - Winifred Edgerton MerrillWinifred Edgerton MerrillWinifred Edgerton, was born in Ripon, Wisconsin, was the first American woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics. She earned her B.A. degree from Wellesley College in 1883. She attended Columbia University in New York after a short stay at Harvard...
(1862–1951) - Maryam MirzakhaniMaryam MirzakhaniMaryam Mirzakhani is an Iranian mathematician, Professor of Mathematics at Stanford University...
(1977– ) - Ruth MoufangRuth MoufangRuth Moufang was a German mathematician.Born to a German chemist Dr. Eduard Moufang and Else Fecht Moufang, she studied mathematics at the University of Frankfurt. In 1931 she received her Ph.D. on projective geometry under the direction of Max Dehn, and in 1932 spent a fellowship year in Rome...
(1905–1977) - Fotini Markopoulou-KalamaraFotini Markopoulou-KalamaraFotini G. Markopoulou-Kalamara is a Greek theoretical physicist interested in foundational mathematics and quantum mechanics. She is a faculty member at Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and is an adjunct professor at the University of Waterloo.Markopoulou received her Ph.D...
(1971–)
N
- Evelyn NelsonEvelyn Nelson (mathematician)Evelyn Merle Nelson , born Evelyn Merle Roden, was a Canadian mathematician. Nelson made contributions to the area of universal algebra with applications to theoretical computer science...
(1943–1987) - Hanna NeumannHanna NeumannJohanna Neumann was a German-born mathematician who worked on group theory.Johanna was born in Lankwitz, Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Germany. She attended Auguste-Viktoria-Schule and the University of Berlin and completed her studies in 1936 with distinctions in mathematics and physics. She began...
(1914–1971) - Florence NightingaleFlorence NightingaleFlorence Nightingale OM, RRC was a celebrated English nurse, writer and statistician. She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night...
(1820–1910) - Emmy NoetherEmmy NoetherAmalie Emmy Noether was an influential German mathematician known for her groundbreaking contributions to abstract algebra and theoretical physics. Described by David Hilbert, Albert Einstein and others as the most important woman in the history of mathematics, she revolutionized the theories of...
(1882–1935)
P
- Raman ParimalaRaman ParimalaRaman Parimala is an Indian mathematician known for her contributions to algebra. She is the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of mathematics at Emory University. For many years, she was a professor at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research , Mumbai.- Background :Parimala was raised in Tamil Nadu, India...
(1948– ) - Rózsa PéterRózsa PéterRózsa Péter , Hungarian name Péter Rózsa, was a Hungarian mathematician. She is best known for her work with recursion theory....
(1905–1977) - Elena Cornaro PiscopiaElena Cornaro PiscopiaElena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia was a Venetian philosopher of noble descent, and the first woman to receive a degree.She was born in the Palazzo Loredan, at Venice, Republic of Venice on 5 June 1646. She was the third child of Giovanni Battista Cornaro-Piscopia, and his wife Zanetta Boni. ...
(1646–1684) - Vera PlessVera PlessVera S. Pless is an American mathematician specializing in combinatorics and coding theory. She is professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has co-authored several articles with John H. Conway, giving her an Erdős number of 2....
(1931– ) - Pelageya Polubarinova-KochinaPelageya Polubarinova-KochinaPelageya Yakovlevna Polubarinova-Kochina was a Soviet woman mathematician and scientist, working in applied mathematics, best known for her work on the application of Fuchsian differential equations to hydrodynamics....
(1899–1999) - Cheryl PraegerCheryl PraegerCheryl Elisabeth Praeger, AM is an Australian mathematician. She is currently a professor of mathematics at the University of Western Australia...
(1948– )
R
- Marina RatnerMarina RatnerMarina Ratner is a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley who works in ergodic theory. Around 1990 she proved a group of major theorems concerning unipotent flows on homogeneous spaces, known as Ratner's theorems. Ratner was awarded the Ostrowski Prize in 1993 and...
(1938– ) - Mary ReesMary ReesSusan Mary Rees, FRS is a British mathematician and a Professor of Mathematics at Liverpool University since 2002, specialising in research in complex dynamical systems....
(1953– ) - Idun ReitenIdun ReitenIdun Reiten is a Norwegian professor of mathematics. She is considered to be one of Norway's greatest mathematicians today.-Career:She took her PhD degree at the University of Illinois in 1971...
(1942– ) - Julia RobinsonJulia RobinsonJulia Hall Bowman Robinson was an American mathematician best known for her work on decision problems and Hilbert's Tenth Problem.-Background and education:...
(1919–1985) - Mary Ellen RudinMary Ellen RudinMary Ellen Rudin is an American mathematician.Born Mary Ellen Estill, she attended the University of Texas, completing her B.A. in 1944 and her Ph.D. in 1949, under Robert Lee Moore. In 1953, she married the mathematician Walter Rudin. Following her mentor Moore, her research centers on point-set...
(1924– )
S
- Alice T. SchaferAlice T. SchaferAlice Turner Schafer was an American mathematician. She was one of the founding members of the Association for Women in Mathematics in 1971.-Early life:...
(1915–2009) - Charlotte ScottCharlotte ScottCharlotte Angas Scott D.Sc. was a British mathematician who spent the later part of her career in the United States and was influential in the development of American mathematics, including the mathematical education of women.Scott played an important role in Cambridge changing its rules for the...
(1858–1931) - Nina SnaithNina SnaithNina Claire Snaith is a British mathematician at the University of Bristol working in random matrix theory and quantum chaos.In 1998, she and her then adviser Jon Keating conjectured a value for the leading coefficient of the asymptotics of the moments of the Riemann zeta function...
- Mary SomervilleMary SomervilleMary Fairfax Somerville was a Scottish science writer and polymath, at a time when women's participation in science was discouraged...
(1780–1872) - Bhama SrinivasanBhama SrinivasanBhama Srinivasan is a mathematician known for her work in the representation theory of finite groups. Her contributions were honored with the 1990 Noether Lecture. She served as President of the Association for Women in Mathematics from 1981 to 1983. She earned her Ph.D. in 1960 with her...
(1935–) - Irene StegunIrene StegunIrene Anne Stegun was a mathematician at the National Bureau of Standards who, with Milton Abramowitz, edited a classic book of mathematical tables called A Handbook of Mathematical Functions, widely known as Abramowitz and Stegun...
(1919–2008) - Esther SzekeresEsther SzekeresEsther Szekeres was a Hungarian-Australian mathematician. Esther Szekeres's Erdős number is 1.- Biography :...
(1910–2005) - Vera T. SósVera T. SósVera T. Sós is a Hungarian mathematician, specializing in number theory and combinatorics. She was a student and close collaborator of both Paul Erdős and Alfréd Rényi. She also collaborated frequently with her husband Paul Turán, the famous analyst, number theorist, and combinatorist...
(1930 - )
T
- Éva TardosÉva TardosÉva Tardos is a Hungarian mathematician, winner of the Fulkerson Prize , and professor of Computer Science at Cornell University.Research Interests:...
(1957– ) - Olga Taussky-Todd (1906–1995)
- Audrey TerrasAudrey TerrasAudrey Terras is an American mathematician who works primarily in number theory. Her research has focused on quantum chaos and on various types of zeta functions.-Life and education:...
(1942– ) - Theano (6th century BC)
- Ulrike Tillmann (1962- )
W
- Katrin WehrheimKatrin WehrheimKatrin Wehrheim is Assistant Professor of Mathematics in the MIT Mathematics Department. Her research centers around symplectic topology and gauge theory.-Early life:...
- Anna Johnson Pell WheelerAnna Johnson Pell WheelerAnna Johnson Pell Wheeler was an American mathematician. She is best known for early work on linear algebra in infinite dimension, which has later become a part of functional analysis.-Biography:...
(1883–1966) - Mary WheelerMary WheelerMary Fanett Wheeler is an American mathematician, noted for her work on numerical methods for partial differential equations, including domain decomposition methods...
(1931– )
- Melanie WoodMelanie WoodMelanie Matchett Wood is an American mathematician who became the first female American to make the U.S. International Mathematical Olympiad Team. She completed her Ph.D...
(1981– ) - Margaret H. Wright (1944– )
- Dorothy Maud WrinchDorothy Maud WrinchDorothy Maud Wrinch was a mathematician and biochemical theorist best known for her attempt to deduce protein structure using mathematical principles....
(1894–1976)
See also
- Women in scienceWomen in scienceWomen have made contributions and sacrifices to science from the earliest times. Like many men in science, women have received little or no distinction for their work during their lifetimes. Science is generally and historically a male-dominated field, and evidence suggests that this is due to...
- List of female scientists
- Noether Lecturer
- Women in computingWomen in computingGlobal concerns about current and future roles of women in computing occupations gained more importance with the emerging information age. These concerns motivated public policy debates addressing gender equality as computer applications exerted increasing influence in society...
External links
- Chronological Index of Women Mathematicians
- Alphabetical Index of Women Mathematicians
- Association for Women in MathematicsAssociation for Women in MathematicsThe Association for Women in Mathematics is a professional society whose mission is to encourage women and girls to study and to have active careers in the mathematical sciences. Equal opportunity and the equal treatment of women and girls in the mathematical sciences are promoted. The AWM was...
- List of Noether Lecture subjects