Claribel Kendall (January 23, 1889 – April 17, 1965) was an American mathematician.

Education

Born in

Denver, Colorado Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

, Kendall received her Bachelor and Bachelor of Education from the

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University of Co ...

in 1912. Kendall also went on to receive her

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

in 1914 with a focus in mathematics. She studied mathematics in an era when women were increasingly seeking a college education and slowly beginning to move into math and science, fields that had traditionally been exclusively male. Her master's thesis was on “Pre Associative Syzygies in

Linear Algebra Linear algebra is the branch of mathematics concerning linear equations such as: :a_1x_1+\cdots +a_nx_n=b, linear maps such as: :(x_1, \ldots, x_n) \mapsto a_1x_1+\cdots +a_nx_n, and their representations in vector spaces and through matrices. ...

." While completing her master's degree, Kendall began teaching in the mathematics department at the University of Colorado in 1913. After receiving her master's degree, she began to work towards her doctorate. Kendall entered the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

as a student and spent several summers between 1915 and 1918 there*. In 1920 she received a fellowship from the University of Chicago to aid in the completion of her degree. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in January 1922. Kendall wrote her doctoral thesis on “Certain Congruences Determined by a Given Surface”, under Professor

Ernest Julius Wilczynski Ernest Julius Wilczynski (November 13, 1876 – September 14, 1932) was an American mathematician considered the founder of projective differential geometry. Born in Hamburg, Germany, Wilczynski's family emigrated to America and settled in Chica ...

. Kendall's work went on to be published in the ''

American Journal of Mathematics The ''American Journal of Mathematics'' is a bimonthly mathematics journal published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. History The ''American Journal of Mathematics'' is the oldest continuously published mathematical journal in the United ...

'' in 1923.

Career

Kendall taught at the

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado syst ...

from 1913 until her retirement in 1957, being promoted to full professor by 1944. Kendall directed ten master's theses at Colorado; eight of which were by women. Kendall was a member of the

Christian Science Church The Church of Christ, Scientist was founded in 1879 in Boston, Massachusetts, by Mary Baker Eddy, author of '' Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,'' and founder of Christian Science. The church was founded "to commemorate the word and ...

. Kendall was also Secretary of the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

chapter of

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...

for over 30 years. Kendall was also a contributor to the solutions of problems in the

American Mathematical Monthly ''The American Mathematical Monthly'' is a mathematical journal founded by Benjamin Finkel in 1894. It is published ten times each year by Taylor & Francis for the Mathematical Association of America. The ''American Mathematical Monthly'' is an e ...

Awards

Kendall was the first member of the department to receive the Robert L. Stearns Award from the University of Colorado, Boulder for “outstanding service or achievement”. She was also a charter member of the Mathematical Association of America and one of the founders of the Rocky Mountain Section of the MAA in 1917. Published in the ''American Journal of Mathematics.''

References

* Louise S. Grinstein (Editor), Paul J. Campbell (Editor) (1987).
Women of Mathematics: A Bio-Bibliographic Sourcebook
'.

Greenwood Press Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. (GPG), also known as ABC-Clio/Greenwood (stylized ABC-CLIO/Greenwood), is an educational and academic publisher (middle school through university level) which is today part of ABC-Clio. Established in 1967 as Gr ...

, New York. . pp. 92–94.

External links

* * * Biography on p. 324-326 of th
Supplementary Material
a
AMS
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kendall, Claribel 1889 births 1965 deaths American women mathematicians 20th-century American mathematicians University of Colorado alumni University of Chicago alumni University of Colorado faculty American Christian Scientists 20th-century American women scientists People from Denver Mathematicians from Colorado 20th-century women mathematicians