Mary Domitilla Thuener (Eleanor Margaret Thuener, 1880–1977) was a nun and mathematician who served as the first head of

Villa Madonna College Thomas More University is a private Roman Catholic university in Crestview Hills, Kentucky. It serves about 2,000 full and part-time students. The university was founded in 1921 by the local Benedictine Sisters as Villa Madonna College. Histor ...

Early life and education

Thuener was born on October 25, 1880. Her father was an immigrant from Germany who married an American; they had seven children but only three survived. Eleanor, the oldest, was born in

Allegheny, Pennsylvania Allegheny City was a municipality that existed in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania from 1788 until it was annexed by Pittsburgh in 1907. It was located north across the Allegheny River from downtown Pittsburgh, with its southwest border formed by ...

. She completed her studies at St. Mary’s Academy in

Monroe, Michigan Monroe is the largest city and county seat of Monroe County in the U.S. state of Michigan. Monroe had a population of 20,462 in the 2020 census. The city is bordered on the south by Monroe Charter Township, but the two are administered auton ...

in 1905, took orders as a

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

nun, and entered the St. Waldburg convent in

Covington, Kentucky Covington is a home rule-class city in Kenton County, Kentucky, United States, located at the confluence of the Ohio and Licking Rivers. Cincinnati, Ohio, lies to its immediate north across the Ohio and Newport, to its east across the Licking ...

, taking the name Mary Domitilla. There she came to work as a teacher in two local Catholic schools. By taking evening classes at St. Xavier College, Thuener completed a bachelor's degree in 1920. She completed a master's degree in 1923, in the women's college associated with the Catholic University of America.

Leadership

In 1921, the Benedictines of Covington founded Villa Madonna College, later to become Thomas More College. Thuener became its first dean, and also taught mathematics there. In 1929, she left for additional study at the Catholic University of America, completing a PhD in 1932. Her dissertation, supervised by Aubrey Edward Landry, was ''On the Number and Reality of the Self-Symmetric Quadrilaterals In-and-Circumscribed to the Triangular-Symmetric Rational Quartic''. She then returned to Villa Madonna as a mathematics and physics instructor. She served as prioress of St. Waldburg's beginning in 1943. Thuener died on September 29, 1977.

References

1880 births 1977 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians Women mathematicians Xavier University alumni Catholic University of America alumni Thomas More University people Benedictine prioresses 20th-century American Roman Catholic nuns {{US-mathematician-stub