... (AWM)¹

The AWM was established in 1971 to serve and encourage women to study and have active careers in the mathematical sciences. Membership, now numbering over 4000, includes both women and men from the United States and around the world, representing all parts of the mathematical community. For more information about the AWM, its programs and activities write: AWM, Box 178, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA 02181. Web editor's note: AWM has since moved. See their web page (/) for the current address.

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... music.²

Symposium speakers were: Carolyn Dean, Bernadette Perrin-Riou, Mei-Chi Shaw, Jiang-Hua Lu, Ruth J. Williams, Laurette Tuckerman, Lynne M. Butler, Joan Feigenbaum, Elise Cawley and Jill Pipher. Graduate student speakers were: Andrea Bertozzi, Jill Dietz, Ellen Gethner, Miilja-Riita Hakosalo, Deanna Hausperger, Kitty Holland, Diana Major, Susan Schwartz, Melanie Stein and Julia Yang. Debbie Lockhart and Hugo Rossi led the Luncheon discussion.

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... ....''³

Web editor's note: AWM moved its offices to the University of Maryland in 1992.

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... Newsletters⁴

See for example, Rebekka Struik's article, ``The Two City Problem,'' (AWM Newsletter, September 1974) or Marian Pour-El's article in Mathematics Tomorrow (edited by L.A. Steen, Springer-Verlag, 1981).

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... Berkeley⁵

Here I was in illustrious company. Before me there was Julia Robinson who, from time to time, was a lecturer at Berkeley until she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1975 (and then immediately promoted to full professor). With me as lecturer was Karen Uhlenbeck. After that, there was a long line of prominent women mathematicians (and AWM members) including Chuu-Lian Terng, AWM President Jill Mesirov and Ruth Charney, member of the AWM Executive Committee.

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... unique.⁶

Although, when I thought back, the three women in my class in graduate school all had been born in New York City, all were Jewish (at least in part), all studied at women's schools, married in college, had babies while in graduate school, and all studied logic.

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... dismissed.⁷

There is an interesting story here which I heard then for the first time. In 1888, Kovalevsky submitted her paper, ``On the Rotation of a Solid Body about a Fixed Point'' to the French Academy of Sciences to compete for the Prix Bordin. Papers had to be submitted anonymously with signatures coded by the author. That motto was Kovalevsky's code. Her anonymous paper was deemed so exceptional that the prize money was increased from 3000 to 5000 francs.

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... Alice)⁸

As I recall, shortly after the AWM applied for affiliate membership in the CBMS, a mysterious math society, apparently originating in the mid-west, decided it also was worthy of CBMS membership. Its application caused something of a commotion, prompting the CBMS to reevaluate its membership criteria. This delayed AWM's entrance for about a year, but in the end, AWM was able to meet the stiffer requirements.

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... 1927⁹

In the interim, women had been invited sporadically to speak at local meetings: Pauline Speny (1933), Emmy Noether (1934), Olga Taussky-Todd (1959), Cathleen Morawetz (1969), Mary Ellen Rudin (1971), Mary Elizabeth Hamstrom (1972).

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... do.''¹⁰

See AWM Newsletters and also, Math Equals by Teri Perl, (Addison-Wesley, 1978). A number of biographies of women mathematicians by women mathematicians have appeared in the Newsletters over the years. As an example, in the July 1978 issue, Bhama Srinivasan writes about Ruth Moufang (1905- 1977), dedicating her article to the many mathematicians who have exclaimed, ``You mean Moufang is a woman?''

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... Falconer.¹¹

Their stories are published in the September 1978 and May-June 1980 Newsletters. Also see Pat Kenschaft's article, ``Black Women in Mathematics in the United States,'' (American Mathematical Monthly, vol. 8, no. 6, 1981). Lee Lorch plays an important role here. Three women who studied with him at Fisk (during the period 1950-1955) went on to get Ph.D.s in mathematics: Etta Falconer, Vivienne Mayes-Malone and Gloria Hewitt.

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... Y''¹²

Y, a pioneer in the application of non-linear mathematics to understanding chemical and biological phenomena, is recipient of numerous honors and awards, including a Sloan, a Guggenheim and a MacArthur ``genius'' award.

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... ...''¹³

Not completely. It should be noted, for example, that the AWM by-laws were written and passed during Judy Roitman's term. Creatively, they stipulated both formal structure and procedures for AWM's governance, while at the same time leaving room for flexibility.

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... interest¹⁴

An impressive list of such Council members, contained in the September 1978 Newsletter, indicates broad AWM membership interests and affiliations: pure and applied mathematics research; colleges, universities and research institutions; math education; career counseling; teacher education; four-year state colleges; two-year community colleges; high school math teachers; history; and retired women.

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... Sciences¹⁵

According to (MP), ``when the University [of California at Berkeley] press office received the news [of Robinson's election], someone from there called the mathematics department to find out who Julia Robinson was. `That's Professor Robinson's wife.' `Well,' replied the caller, `Professor Robinson's wife has just been elected to the National Academy of Sciences.' ''

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... 1980.¹⁶

The Emmy Noether Lecturers have been: E Jessie MacWilliams, Olga Taussky-Todd, Julia Robinson, Cathleen S. Morawetz, Mary Ellen Rudin, Jane Cronin Scanlon, Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat, Joan S. Birman, Karen K. Uhlenbeck, Mary E Wheeler, Bhama Srinivasan, Alexandra Bellow.

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... future.¹⁷

In 1979, at the summer Meeting in Duluth, Judy Roitman organized an AWM panel ``Mathematics Education: A Feminist Perspective'' to discuss these new programs and strategies. Speakers included: Deborah Hughes Hallett, Diane Resek, and myself.

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... ...''¹⁸

McKee went on to stress how Noether's methods were directly applicable to her own work and living. Her remarks seem particularly relevant today, as the math community seeks words and ways to communicate to policy makers, and the public, the value of mathematics: ``Miss Noether's methods of working and thinking became the basis for my analytical work at the research agency of the Pennsylvanian State Legislature for almost thirty years. It is probably heresy for me to mention this in front of so many theoretical mathematicians but there is a great need in government for abstract imaginative thinkers to help solve all sorts of problems. For example: What are the basic cost factors in a given government funded program? What is the taxpayer's money really accomplishing? During my career we searched for answers to these questions in such areas as the construction of public school buildings, the operating of State mental hospitals, the faculty workload at various levels of education, highway engineering as directed toward traffic safety. We chewed over the characteristics and searched for the basic independent variables when considered from all possible points of view. Other times the problem was to find the relevant variables to determine an equitable distribution of appropriations. What was the most important factor? population density? financial need? or simple geography? ...'' (See the Symposium proceedings.)

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... 1983.¹⁹

Contributors to the Noether proceedings include: Armand Borel; Waiter Felt, Nathan Jacobson, Jeanne LaDuke, Marguerite Lehr, Ruth S. McKee, Uta C. Merzbach, Emiliana P. Noether, Gottfried E. Noether, Grace S. Quinn, Judith D. Sally, Richard G. Swan, Olga Taussky, Karen Uhlenbeck, Michele Vergne.

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... functional.²⁰

Special credit for securing funds is due Eleanor Palais, longtime chair of the AWM Fund-raising Committee, and to Mary Gray and Alice Schafer.

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... community.²¹

The panelists (Nancy Johnson, Louise Hay, Lucy Gamett, Marci Perlstadt and myself) talked about personal computing, running a math department with computers, evolution from mathematician to the held of computers, and computers in, and influence on, mathematical research--all quite novel topics at the time.

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... 1983)²²

Speakers included Judith Sunley, Alice Schafer, Rhonda Hughes, and Cora Sadosky.

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... be!''²³

For remarks on previous mathematical mentors of women in the U.S., see ``Women in the American Mathematical Community: The Pre-1940 Ph.D.s'' by Judy Green and Jeanne LaDuke (The Mathematical Intelligencer, vol. 9, No. 1, 1987). Of their group of 229 pre-1940 Ph.D.s in mathematics, more than a third were advised by 8 mathematicians: Charlotte Angas Scott and Anna Pell-Wheeler (at Bryn Mawr) and 6 men--Frank Morley (at Johns Hopkins) and A.B. Coble (at Johns Hopkins and Illinois), Aubrey Landry (at Catholic University), Virgil Snyder (at Cornell) and Gilbert Ames Bliss and L.E. Dickson (both at Chicago where together they advised 30 women Ph.D.s). It is not hard to surmise that each of these men felt secure in their position in mathematics. Like Lipman Bers, all but one were at one time President of the AMS!

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... AWM.²⁴

In the spring of 1987, Alice Schafer ran a SKHS Day at Simmons College, where SKHS Days have been held every year since. (Alice taught at Simmons after retiring from Wellesley--hence the connection; never one to retire, she is currently head of the Math Department at Marymount University!)

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... papers²⁵

Contributors to the Kovalevsky proceedings include: Patricia Bauman, Enrico Bombieri, John W. Cahn, Roger Cooke, Dennis Deturck, Jozef Dodzuik, Bans Engler, Carolyn Gordon, Ann Hibner Koblitz, Tilla Klotz Milnor, Richard Palais, Thea Pignataro, Emma Previato, Burton Randol, Michael Shub, Dennis Sullivan, Jean Taylor, Chuu-lian Terng, Alphonse T Vasquez.

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... 64).²⁶

In this volume, Ann Hibner Koblitz (``Changing Views of Sofia Kovalevskaia'') presents an alternative, perhaps more plausible, perspective on the Prix Bordin story mentioned earlier. ``Anonymity would not have been easy to achieve in the relatively small European mathematical community of the time,'' she contends. Furthermore, there is ``overwhelming evidence that the French academicians decided to make the motion of a rigid body the topic of the 1888 Prix Bordin contest precisely because they knew that Kovalevskaia was working on the problem.'' Koblitz contends further that Felix Klein and Eric Bell are two of the people most responsible for the ``fictionalization'' of Kovalevsky as a ``frivolous creature on the fringe of the mathematical world.'' Koblitz is particularly pointed in her criticism of Bell, claiming that ``it is to him that mathematicians are largely indebted for distorted impressions of their predecessors.''

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... life.²⁷

See ``An Autobiography of Julia Robinson by Constance Reid'' in MP.

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... continents.²⁸

Panelists were: Josefina Alvarez (Argentina), Bodil Branner (Denmark), Marie Francoise Coste-Roy (France), Consuelo Flores (Nicaragua), Gudrun Kalmbach (Germany), Maria Jose Pacifico (Brazil), Jennifer Seberry (Australia), Caroline Series (England), and Josephine Guidy-Wandja (Ivory Coast). Although the panel was large, we had no representation from a large part of the world--indeed from Eastern Europe through Asia. This was partially rectified at the ICM-90 in Kyoto where panelists included: Rajinda Hans-Gill (India), Hu He-sheng (China), Maria T. Lozano (Spain), Aiko Negishi (Japan), Kati Tenenblat (Brazil), Gillian Thornsby (New Zealand), and Asia Weiss (Canada).

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... meeting.²⁹

As a personal protest, Marina Ratner had taken the more extreme position of publicly boycotting the Congress. (See ``Women in Mathematics: An International Perspective, Eight Years Later,'' LB, The Mathematical Intelligencer, vol. 9, no. 2, 1987.)

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... fields.''³⁰

For a thoughtful and well articulated account of this viewpoint by one of its key theorists, see Reflections on Gender and Science by Evelyn Fox Keller (Yale, 1985). In this book, Keller calls for a science ``in which difference, rather than division, constitutes the fundamental principle for ordering the world ...''

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... minorities.³¹

See AWM Newsletter, May-June 1987.

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... 1988.³²

At the formal ceremonies, Rhonda presented the AMS with congratulatory wishes from the AWM and in appreciation was presented a silver bowl from the AMS (which now ritually gets passed down from one AWM President to the next at inauguration time).

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... .''³³

See WM and the November-December 1988 AWM Newsletter for more on these fascinating stories and an account of the centennial history.

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... ''³⁴

Louise Hay's autobiographical article, ``How I became a mathematician (or how it was in the bad old days)'' appeared in the September-October 1989 issue of the AWM Newsletter. ``If there is a moral to this tale of how I became a mathematician,'' she concludes in the article, ``it is that sources of inspiration and opportunities to change your life can come unexpectedly and should not be ignored; and that you should not neglect the dictates of your own career, taking some risks if necessary, since you never know what the future will bring.''

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... sciences.³⁵

The AWM Travel Grant program is funded by NSF; our postdoc/graduate student workshop program is funded jointly by NSF and ONR.

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... Center.³⁶

Resource materials, including a booklet Careers that Count: Opportunities in the Mathematical Sciences and a brochure highlighting the Noether Lecturers (both written by Allyn Jackson), are available from the AWM Resource Center at Wellesley. Add note here!!!

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... woman.³⁷

Dusa's moving and very personal response appears in Notices, March 1991. Highly recommended reading!

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... on!³⁸

For information on women in the MAA and much more, see ``Winning Women Into Mathematics,'' produced by the MAA Committee on the Participation of Women and edited by Pat Kenschaft (MAA Publications, 1991).

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... talks³⁹

Invited Speakers at ICM-90 included Lenore Blum, Shafi Goldwasser, Dusa McDuff, Colette Moeglin, Mary Rees, and Eva Tardos. In addition, Joan Birman presented the account of the work of Field's Medalist Vaughan Jones.

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... delegates⁴⁰

The U.S. delegates were Alice Chang, Andy Gleason, Ron Graham, Linda Keen, and myself.

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... office,⁴¹

In particular, special acknowledgment is due Ruth Samia and Margaret Munroe, who ran the AWM office for many years.

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... Celebration.⁴²

Symposium Program Committee: Jill Mesirov and Carol Wood (co-Chairs), LB, Alice Chang, Linda Keen, Maria Klawe, Susan Montgomery, Bhama Srinivasan, Karen Uhlenbeck, Mary Wheeler. Graduate Student Workshop Committee: LB (Chair), Ruth Charney, Pam Cook, Leslie Federer, Martha Nesbitt. Louise Hay Award Committee: Rhonda Hughes (Chair), Sylvia Bozeman, Mary Ellen Rudin. Resource Center Committee: Jenny A. Baglivo (Chair), Rosemary Chang, Martha K. Smith, Judy Roitman, Margaret Wright.

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Click to return to index of article.

Copyright ©1991 American Mathematical Society. Reprinted with permission.
Brought to you by the Association for Women in Mathematics.
Comments: awm-webmaster@awm-math.org.