Karin Erdmann (born 1948) is a German mathematician specializing in the areas of

algebra Algebra () is one of the broad areas of mathematics. Roughly speaking, algebra is the study of mathematical symbols and the rules for manipulating these symbols in formulas; it is a unifying thread of almost all of mathematics. Elementary a ...

known as

representation theory Representation theory is a branch of mathematics that studies abstract algebraic structures by ''representing'' their elements as linear transformations of vector spaces, and studies modules over these abstract algebraic structures. In essen ...

(especially

modular representation theory Modular representation theory is a branch of mathematics, and is the part of representation theory that studies linear representations of finite groups over a field ''K'' of positive characteristic ''p'', necessarily a prime number. As well as ...

) and

homological algebra Homological algebra is the branch of mathematics that studies homology (mathematics), homology in a general algebraic setting. It is a relatively young discipline, whose origins can be traced to investigations in combinatorial topology (a precurs ...

(especially

Hochschild cohomology In mathematics, Hochschild homology (and cohomology) is a homology theory for associative algebras over rings. There is also a theory for Hochschild homology of certain functors. Hochschild cohomology was introduced by for algebras over a field, a ...

). She is notable for her work in modular representation theory which has been cited over 1500 times according to the

Mathematical Reviews ''Mathematical Reviews'' is a journal published by the American Mathematical Society (AMS) that contains brief synopses, and in some cases evaluations, of many articles in mathematics, statistics, and theoretical computer science. The AMS also pu ...

. Her nephew Martin Erdmann is professor for experimental

particle physics Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) an ...

at the

RWTH Aachen University RWTH Aachen University (), also known as North Rhine-Westphalia Technical University of Aachen, Rhine-Westphalia Technical University of Aachen, Technical University of Aachen, University of Aachen, or ''Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hoch ...

Education

She attended the

Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen University of Giessen, official name Justus Liebig University Giessen (german: Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen), is a large public research university in Giessen, Hesse, Germany. It is named after its most famous faculty member, Justus von ...

and wrote her Ph.D. thesis on "''2-Hauptblöcke von Gruppen mit Dieder-Gruppen als 2-Sylow-Gruppen''" (Principal 2-blocks of

groups A group is a number of persons or things that are located, gathered, or classed together. Groups of people * Cultural group, a group whose members share the same cultural identity * Ethnic group, a group whose members share the same ethnic iden ...

with dihedral Sylow 2-subgroups) in 1976 under the direction of Gerhard O. Michler.

Professional career

Erdmann was a Fellow of

Somerville College, Oxford Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, Ir ...

. Erdmann is a university lecturer emeritus at the Mathematical Institute at the University of Oxford where she has had 25 doctoral students and 45 descendants. She has published over 115 papers and her work has been cited over 2000 times. She has contributed to the understanding of the

representation theory of the symmetric group In mathematics, the representation theory of the symmetric group is a particular case of the representation theory of finite groups, for which a concrete and detailed theory can be obtained. This has a large area of potential applications, from sym ...

Honors

Erdmann was the inaugural Emmy Noether Lecturer of the

German Mathematical Society The German Mathematical Society (german: Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung, DMV) is the main professional society of German mathematicians and represents German mathematics within the European Mathematical Society (EMS) and the International Mathe ...

in 2008.

Selected bibliography

* *

References

External links

br>author profile

Home page at Oxford
Living people 1948 births 20th-century German mathematicians Women mathematicians Fellows of Somerville College, Oxford University of Giessen alumni Algebraists 21st-century German mathematicians {{Germany-mathematician-stub