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Maria Gaetana Agnesi
gnesi was exposed to mathematics from a very early age. By the age of 20 she had started work on her most important contribution to mathematics, the book Analytical Institutions, which focused on differential and integral calculus. Originally intended as a textbook for her brothers, this work was eventually published in 1748 to wide acclaim, and was later translated into English. Early sections contained elementary problems on maxima, minima, tangents, and inflection points. Also described in th -
Sophie Germain
(1776-1830) - French - mathematician - She studied geometry to escape boredom during the French Revolution when she was confined to her family's home, and went on to do important work in mathematics, especially her work on Fermat's Last Theorem. -
Charlotte Angas Scott
(1848-1931) - 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. -
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. -
Hypatia of Alexandria
Hypatia was the daughter of Theon of Alexandria who was a teacher of mathematics with the Museum of Alexandria in Egypt. A center of Greek intellectual and cultural life, the Museum included many independent schools and the great library of Alexandria. Hypatia studied with her father, and with many others including Plutarch the Younger. She herself taught at the Neoplatonist school of philosophy. She became the salaried director of this school in 400. She probably wrote on mathematics, astronom -
Sofia Kovalevskaya
Georgia Smith (neé Caldwell) received in mathematics, her A.B. (1928) and A.M. (1929) from the University of Kansas, and a Ph.D. (posthumously) from the University of Pittsburgh in 1961. She taught at Spelman College (1929-1938) and from1941 unntil her death, and between 1938 and 1945 at Lincoln University (Missouri) and Alabama A&M. In 1959 she began her pre-doctoral work full-time in 1959. Her thesis, in Group Theory, was approved in January of 1961; however, she died of cancer in May. She was -
Sofia Kovalevskaya
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 -
Amalie Emmy Noether
(1882-1935) - German, Jewish, American - mathematician - Called by Albert Einstein "the most significant creative mathematical genius thus far produced since the higher education of women began," Noether escaped Germany when the Nazis took over, and taught in America for several years before her unexpected death. -
Lesley Sibner
Sibner was an aspiring actress as a young woman. Later, as a fine arts student at City College in New York City, she took a required calculus course, loved the subject, and immediately changed her major to mathematics. She received her Ph.D. in 1964 from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and today is a noted researcher and professor of mathematics at Brooklyn Polytechnic University. -
Florence Nightingale
Nightingale is most remembered for her work as a nurse in reforming hospital sanitation methods, yet she was also a pioneer in the applications of statistical analysis and methods of data presentation in medicine. She was an innovator in the collection, tabulation, interpretation, and graphical display of descriptive statistics. For example, Nightingale developed the "polar-area diagram," a precursor of the pie chart, to dramatize mortality rates due to unsanitary hospital conditions during the
