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Maria Agnesi
(1718-1799) - Italian (Milan) - mathematician - Oldest of 21 children and a child prodigy who studied languages and math, she wrote a textbook to explain math to her brothers which became a noted textbook on mathematics. She was the first woman appointed a university professor of mathematics, though there's doubt she took up the chair. -
Sophie Germain
She was born in (1776) and died in (1831) When Paris exploded with revolution, young Sophie Germain retreated to her father’s study and began reading. After learning about the death of Archimedes, she began a lifelong study of mathematics and geometry, even teaching herself Latin and Greek so that she could read classic work -
. Mary Fairfax Somerville
Born on December 26, 1780 in Jedburgh Scotland, the daughter of Margaret Charters and Lieutenant William George Fairfax. -
Ada Lovelace
She was born in (1815) and she died in (1852) she never knew her father, the poet Lord Byron, who left England due to a scandal shortly after her birth. Her overprotective mother, wanting to daughter to grown up as unemotional and unlike her father as possible, encouraged her study of science and mathematics -
Charlotte Angas Scott
She was born in (1848) and died (1931) English, American - mathematician, educator - Raised in a supportive family that encouraged her education, Charlotte Angas Scott became the first head of the math department at Bryn Mawr College. Her work to standardize testing for college entrance resulted in the formation of the College Entrance Examination Board. -
Sofia Kovalevskaya
She was born in (1850) and she died in (1891) Because Russian women could not attend university, Sofia Vasilyevna contracted a marriage with a young paleontologist, Vladimir Kovalevsky, and they moved to Germany. There she could not attend university lectures, but she was tutored privately and eventually received a doctorate after writing treatises on partial differential equations, Abelian integrals and Saturn’s rings. Following her husband’s death, Kovalevskaya was appointed lecturer in math -
Hertha Marks Ayrton
April 28, 1854 - August 23, 1923 Phoebe Sarah Marks was born in Portsea, England in 1854. She changed her first name to Hertha when she was a teenager. After passing the Cambridge University Examination for Women with honors in English and mathematics, she attended Girton College at Cambridge University, the first residential college for women in England.From 1881 to 1883, Marks worked as a private mathematics tutor, as well as tutoring other subjects. -
Alicia Stott
(1860-1940) - English - mathematician - She translated Platonic and Archimedean solids into higher dimensions, taking years at a time away from her career to be a homemaker. -
Emmy Noether
She was born in (1882) and died in (1935) Noether had overcome many hurdles before she could collaborate with the famed physicist. She grew up in Germany and had her mathematics education delayed because of rules against women matriculating at universities. After she received her PhD, for a dissertation on a branch of abstract algebra, she was unable to obtain a university position for many years, eventually receiving the title of “unofficial associate professor” at the University of Göttingen, -
Teresa Cohen
February 14, 1892 - August 10, 1992 Teresa Cohen was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on Valentine's Day 1892. She attended the Friends School in Baltimore where she credits one of her teachers with sparking her interest in mathematics and teaching. In an interview given at the age of 94, she said: "He tried to make you see that you wanted to reason. You didn't want to remember, you wanted to reason things. And I became so fascinated with algebra that I started working out on my own.
