Snezana Lawrence is a Yugoslav and British

historian of mathematics The history of mathematics deals with the origin of discoveries in mathematics and the mathematical methods and notation of the past. Before the modern age and the worldwide spread of knowledge, written examples of new mathematical developments ...

and a senior lecturer in mathematics and design engineering at Middlesex University.

Education and career

Lawrence is originally from

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

, of mixed Serbian and Jewish ancestry. She studied descriptive geometry at the

University of Belgrade The University of Belgrade ( sr, / ) is a public university in Serbia. It is the oldest and largest modern university in Serbia. Founded in 1808 as the Belgrade Higher School in revolutionary Serbia, by 1838 it merged with the Kragujevac-ba ...

before moving to England in 1991 during the Breakup of Yugoslavia and ensuing

Yugoslav Wars The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related Naimark (2003), p. xvii. ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and insurgencies that took place in the SFR Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001. The conflicts both led up to and resulted from ...

, and later becoming a naturalized British citizen. She earned her PhD from the

Open University The Open University (OU) is a British public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off- ...

in 2002. Her dissertation, ''Geometry of Architecture and Freemasonry in 19th Century England'', was supervised by

Jeremy Gray Jeremy John Gray (born 25 April 1947) is an English mathematician primarily interested in the history of mathematics. Biography Gray studied mathematics at Oxford University from 1966 to 1969, and then at Warwick University, obtaining his Ph.D ...

. While working as a secondary school teacher at St Edmund's Catholic School, Dover in 2004–2005, she won a Gatsby Teacher Fellowship in Mathematics, with which she started a popular web site "Maths is Good For You". The site had the aim of providing a resource to bring more work on the history of mathematics into the secondary school curriculum. Subsequently, Lawrence moved to post-secondary education, including work as a senior lecturer at

Bath Spa University Bath Spa University is a public university in Bath, England, with its main campus at Newton Park, about west of the centre of the city. The university has other campuses in the city of Bath, and one at Corsham Court in Wiltshire. The insti ...

Anglia Ruskin University Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) is a public university in East Anglia, United Kingdom. Its origins are in the Cambridge School of Art, founded by William John Beamont in 1858. It became a university in 1992, and was renamed after John Ruskin in ...

, and Middlesex University.

Books

Lawrence is the co-editor, with Irish mathematician Mark McCartney, of the book ''Mathematicians and their Gods: Interactions between mathematics and religious beliefs'' (Oxford University Press, 2015), on connections between mathematics and religion. She is the author of ''A New Year’s Present from a Mathematician'' (Chapman Hall / CRC Press, 2019), on the nature of mathematics and the definition of mathematicians.

Recognition

Lawrence is a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, for whom she is Diversity Champion and an elected council member.

References

External links

Math is good for youThe Monge project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lawrence, Snezana Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Yugoslav emigrants to the United Kingdom British women mathematicians British women historians British historians of mathematics Alumni of the Open University Academics of Bath Spa University Academics of Middlesex University Fellows of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications