Renu Chakravarti Laskar (born 1932) is an

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

n-born American mathematician, specializing in

graph theory In mathematics, graph theory is the study of ''graphs'', which are mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects. A graph in this context is made up of '' vertices'' (also called ''nodes'' or ''points'') which are conne ...

. She is Professor Emerita of Mathematical sciences at

Clemson University Clemson University () is a public land-grant research university in Clemson, South Carolina. Founded in 1889, Clemson is the second-largest university in the student population in South Carolina. For the fall 2019 semester, the university enro ...

. She received her Ph.D. in Mathematics from the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

in 1962. Laskar has often contributed to the theory of

domination number Domination or dominant may refer to: Society * World domination, which is mainly a conspiracy theory * Colonialism in which one group (usually a nation) invades another region for material gain or to eliminate competition * Chauvinism in which ...

and

circular arc graph In graph theory, a circular-arc graph is the intersection graph of a set of arcs on the circle. It has one vertex for each arc in the set, and an edge between every pair of vertices corresponding to arcs that intersect. Formally, let :I_1, I_2, ...

s. She wrote four papers with

Paul Erdős Paul Erdős ( hu, Erdős Pál ; 26 March 1913 – 20 September 1996) was a Hungarian mathematician. He was one of the most prolific mathematicians and producers of mathematical conjectures of the 20th century. pursued and proposed problems in ...

, giving her an

Erdős number The Erdős number () describes the "collaborative distance" between mathematician Paul Erdős and another person, as measured by authorship of mathematical papers. The same principle has been applied in other fields where a particular individual ...

of 1.

Early life and education

Renu C. Laskar was born in

Bihar Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Be ...

. With the help of her family support, she finished her schooling and college, which wasn't much accessible to the women that time due to the cultural norms prevalent in India. It was during that time, when she discovered her talent for mathematics. She finished her Master's degree in Mathematics from

B. R. Ambedkar Bihar University Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar Bihar University, formerly Bihar University, popularly known as Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Bihar University (BRABU), is a public university located in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, India. Established in 1960, the university has 38 const ...

in the year 1955. Upon finishing college, Laskar, with strong encouragement from her elder brother, decided to come to the United States to pursue her Ph.D. in the year 1958. She worked for her Ph.D. degree at the

under her advisor Henry Roy Brahana and received her degree in the year 1962. She is the first female Indian to receive a Ph.D. in Mathematics from UIUC. She returned to India after that and joined the

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur) is a public institute of technology established by the Government of India in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India. Established in 1951, the institute is the first of the IITs to be established ...

as the first woman faculty at the institute. After three years, Laskar then moved back to the US at

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

and then finally joined

in the year 1968.

Academic life

Laskar took full advantage of the opportunities she had and set new standards for women in mathematics. She ranks among the top women in discrete mathematics in the number of articles published. According to MathSciNet, she has over 100 publications. Part of the reason for her success in this area is her collaboration network, which included

Raj Chandra Bose Raj Chandra Bose (19 June 1901 – 31 October 1987) was an Indian American mathematician and statistician best known for his work in design theory, finite geometry and the theory of error-correcting codes in which the class of BCH codes is par ...

and

. She has extended her influence by supervising Ph.D. students. In 1986, Laskar and Steve Hedetniemi organized the Clemson University Discrete Math Miniconference, an event that has drawn an international audience each year since.

References

External links

Laskar's page at Clemson
{{DEFAULTSORT:Laskar, Renu Chakravarti Graph theorists Indian emigrants to the United States Living people University of Illinois alumni Clemson University faculty 20th-century Indian mathematicians Indian women mathematicians American women mathematicians 1930 births 20th-century women mathematicians 20th-century Indian women 21st-century American women