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Maria Gaetana Agnesi
ven though her contribution to mathematics are very important, Maria Gaetana Agnesi was not a typical famous mathematician. She led a quite simple life and she gave up mathematics very early. At first glance her life may seem to be boring, however, considering the circumstances in which she was raised, her accomplishments to mathematics are glorious. Enjoy! -
Hertha Marks Ayrton
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. Charlotte Scott also attended Girton at this time, and she and Marks helped form a mathematics club to "find problems for the club to solve and 'discuss any mathematical quest -
Grace Marie Bareis
Born in Canal Winchester, Ohio. Received her A.B. degree (first honors) from Heidelberg College, Tifton, Ohio in 1897. She was a graduate student at Bryn Mawr College from 1897 to 1899 and also did graduate work at Columbia University. From 1902 until 1906 she taught mathematics and science at Miss Roney's School in Philadelphia, PA. -
Lida Barrett
Lida K. Barrett is a mathematician and mathematics educator. Born in Houston, Texas, she holds a baccalaureate from Rice University (1946), a masters from the University of Texas (1949), and a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania (1954)--all in mathematics. Her dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania was on "Regular Curves and Regular Points of Finite Order," written under the supervision of John Kline. -
Suzan Rose Benedict
Suzan Benedict was born in Norwalk, Ohio in 1873, the daughter of David and Harriet (Dever) Benedict. She received her B.A. degree in 1895 from Smith College with a major in chemistry and a minor in mathematics, German, and physics. She taught high school mathematics in Norwalk from 1895 to 1905 while also working as a real estate agent. -
Elizabeth Ruth Bennett
Elizabeth Bennett was the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Illinois, and the second Ph.D. overall from that department. She was born in 1880 in Shawnee, PA., and received her A.B. degree in 1903 from Ohio University in Athens, OH. She held a scholarship in mathematics at Illinois for 1907-1908, and a fellowship from 1908-1910. -
Lenore Blum
Lenore Blum was a bright and artistic child who loved math, art, and music from her original introductions to them. Blum finished high school at the age of 16, after which she excitedly applied to MIT, who turned her down for the first of several attempts to enroll. She began college at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh studying first architecture and then math, her real love. For her third year, she enrolled at Simmons, a women's college in Boston, only to find the math courses not challenging enough -
Marjorie Lee BrowneMarjorie Browne
She briefly taught at Gilbert Academy in New Orleans. She earned her M.S. in mathematics from the University of Michigan in 1939, then joined the Wiley College faculty in Marshall, Texas, and started working on her doctorate in Michigan during summers. She became a teaching fellow in 1947 at the University of Michigan. In 1949, Marjorie earned her doctorate in mathematics. She was among the first Black women to earn a doctorate in mathematics. [Evelyn Boyd Granville also received a Ph.D. in math -
Edith Clarke
Edith Clarke's achievements were in the applications of mathematics to engineering. She was born in Ellicott City, Maryland in 1883, one of nine children. Both her parents died by the time she was twelve and with the money she inherited when she turned 18, she decided to study mathematics and astronomy at Vassar College. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1908, then taught mathematics and physics, first at a private girls' school in San Francisco and then at Marshall College in West Virginia. -
Louise Duffield Cummings
Louise Cummings was born in Hamilton, Ontario. Her early education was obtained in the public schools and Collegiate Institute at Hamilton. She received her B.A. (1895) with First Class Honors in Mathematics from the University of Toronto. The year 1895-96 was spent in graduate study under the direction of Professor DeLury of Toronto University. In 1896-97 Cummings held a fellowship in mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania, and the following year she was a student in the Ogden Graduate S
