Helen Frances Cullen (January 4, 1919 – August 25, 2007) was an American mathematician specializing in topology. She worked for many years as a professor of mathematics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was the first female faculty member in the mathematics department at Amherst. She was known as the author of the book ''Introduction to General Topology'' (Heath, 1968), as well as for her outspoken

antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

Education and career

Cullen was born in

Dorchester, Massachusetts Dorchester (colloquially referred to as Dot) is a Boston neighborhood comprising more than in the City of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Originally, Dorchester was a separate town, founded by Puritans who emigrated in 1630 from Dorchester ...

, and studied at

Girls' Latin School Boston Latin Academy (BLA) is a public exam school founded in 1878 in Boston, Massachusetts providing students in grades 7th through 12th a classical preparatory education. Originally named Girls' Latin School until 1977, the school was the ...

and

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...

. She earned a master's degree at the University of Michigan in 1944, and completed her Ph.D. at Michigan in 1950. Her dissertation, ''A Set of Parabolic Regular Curve Families Filling the Plane and Certain Related Reimann Surfaces'', was supervised by Wilfred Kaplan. She was a faculty member in the department of mathematics at Amherst from 1949 until her retirement as a

professor emerita ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

in 1992.

Recognition

In 1998 the Girls' Latin School – Boston Latin Academy Association listed her as one of their outstanding alumnae.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cullen, Helen Frances 1919 births 2007 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians 20th-century American women mathematicians American topologists Radcliffe College alumni University of Michigan alumni University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty 21st-century American women Boston Latin Academy alumni