This is a timeline of women in mathematics.

Timeline

Early Common Era

Before 350:

Pandrosion Pandrosion of Alexandria () was a mathematician in fourth-century-AD Alexandria, discussed in the ''Mathematical Collection'' of Pappus of Alexandria and known for developing an approximate method for doubling the cube. Although there is disagreem ...

, a Greek Alexandrine mathematician known for an approximate solution to

doubling the cube Doubling the cube, also known as the Delian problem, is an ancient geometric problem. Given the edge of a cube, the problem requires the construction of the edge of a second cube whose volume is double that of the first. As with the related pro ...

and a simplified exact solution to the construction of the

geometric mean In mathematics, the geometric mean is a mean or average which indicates a central tendency of a set of numbers by using the product of their values (as opposed to the arithmetic mean which uses their sum). The geometric mean is defined as the ...

. c. 350–370 until 415: The lifetime of

Hypatia Hypatia, Koine pronunciation (born 350–370; died 415 AD) was a neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, then part of the Eastern Roman Empire. She was a prominent thinker in Alexandria wher ...

, a Greek Alexandrine Neoplatonist philosopher in

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

who was the first well-documented woman in mathematics.

18th Century

1748: Italian mathematician Maria Agnesi published the first book discussing both differential and integral calculus, called ''Instituzioni analitiche ad uso della gioventù italiana''. 1759: French mathematician

Émilie du Châtelet Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet (; 17 December 1706 – 10 September 1749) was a French natural philosopher and mathematician from the early 1730s until her death due to complications during childbirth in 1749. ...

's translation and commentary on

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...

’s work ''

Principia Mathematica The ''Principia Mathematica'' (often abbreviated ''PM'') is a three-volume work on the foundations of mathematics written by mathematician–philosophers Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell and published in 1910, 1912, and 1913. ...

'' was published posthumously; it is still considered the standard French translation. c. 1787 – 1797: Self-taught Chinese astronomer

Wang Zhenyi Wang Zhenyi (; born November 30, 1924), also known as Zhen-yi Wang, is a Chinese pathophysiologist and hematologist who is a professor emeritus of Medicine and Pathophysiology at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU). He is most well known f ...

published at least twelve books and multiple articles on astronomy and mathematics.

19th Century

1827: French mathematician

Sophie Germain Marie-Sophie Germain (; 1 April 1776 – 27 June 1831) was a French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. Despite initial opposition from her parents and difficulties presented by society, she gained education from books in her father's lib ...

saw her theorem, known as Germain's Theorem, published in a footnote of a book by the mathematician

Adrien-Marie Legendre Adrien-Marie Legendre (; ; 18 September 1752 – 9 January 1833) was a French mathematician who made numerous contributions to mathematics. Well-known and important concepts such as the Legendre polynomials and Legendre transformation are named ...

. In this theorem Germain proved that if ''x'', ''y'', and ''z'' are integers and if ''x''⁵ + ''y''⁵ = ''z''⁵ then either ''x'', ''y'', or ''z'' must be divisible by 5. Germain's theorem was a major step toward proving

Fermat's Last Theorem In number theory, Fermat's Last Theorem (sometimes called Fermat's conjecture, especially in older texts) states that no three positive integers , , and satisfy the equation for any integer value of greater than 2. The cases and have been k ...

for the case where n equals 5. 1829: The first public examination of an American girl in

geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...

was held. 1858:

Florence Nightengale Florence Nightingale (; 12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was an English social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean War, i ...

became the first female member of the

Royal Statistical Society The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is an established statistical society. It has three main roles: a British learned society for statistics, a professional body for statisticians and a charity which promotes statistics for the public good. ...

. 1873:

Sarah Woodhead Sarah Woodhead (1851–1912) was the first woman to take and pass a Tripos examination. In particular, she was the first woman to take, and to pass, the Mathematical Tripos exam, which she did in 1873. Education Woodhead’s family had long belon ...

of Britain became the first woman to take, and to pass, the

Cambridge Mathematical Tripos The Mathematical Tripos is the mathematics course that is taught in the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. It is the oldest Tripos examined at the University. Origin In its classical nineteenth-century form, the tripos was a ...

Exam. 1874: Russian mathematician

Sofia Kovalevskaya Sofya Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya (russian: link=no, Софья Васильевна Ковалевская), born Korvin-Krukovskaya ( – 10 February 1891), was a Russian mathematician who made noteworthy contributions to analysis, partial differen ...

became the first woman in modern Europe to gain a doctorate in mathematics, which she earned from the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

in Germany. 1880:

Charlotte Angas Scott Charlotte Angas Scott (8 June 1858 – 10 November 1931) was a British mathematician who made her career in the United States and was influential in the development of American mathematics, including the mathematical education of women. Scott ...

of Britain obtained special permission to take the

Exam, as women were not normally allowed to sit for the exam. She came eighth on the Tripos of all students taking them, but due to her sex, the title of "eighth wrangler," a high honour, went officially to a male student. At the ceremony, however, after the seventh wrangler had been announced, all the students in the audience shouted her name. Because she could not attend the award ceremony, Scott celebrated her accomplishment at Girton College where there were cheers and clapping at dinner, and a special evening ceremony where the students sang "See the Conquering Hero Comes", and she received an ode written by a staff member, and was crowned with laurels. 1885:

became the first British woman to receive a doctorate in mathematics, which she received from the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

. 1886:

Winifred Edgerton Merrill Winifred Edgerton (September 24, 1862 – September 6, 1951) was born in Ripon, Wisconsin. She was the first woman to receive a degree from Columbia University and the first United States, American woman to receive a PhD in mathematics.Kell ...

became the first American woman to earn a PhD in mathematics, which she earned from Columbia University. 1888: The

Kovalevskaya top In classical mechanics, the precession of a rigid body such as a spinning top under the influence of gravity is not, in general, an integrable problem. There are however three (or four) famous cases that are integrable, the Euler, the Lagrange, ...

, one of a brief list of known examples of integrable rigid body motion, was discovered by

. 1889:

was appointed as the first female professor in Northern Europe, at the

University of Stockholm Stockholm University ( sv, Stockholms universitet) is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, soci ...

. 1890:

Philippa Fawcett Philippa Garrett Fawcett (4 April 1868 – 10 June 1948) was an English mathematician and educationalist. She was the first woman to obtain the top score in the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos exams. She taught at Newnham College, Cambridge, and at ...

of Britain became the first woman to obtain the top score in the

Exam. Her score was 13 per cent higher than the second highest score. When the women's list was announced, Fawcett was described as "above the

senior wrangler The Senior Frog Wrangler is the top mathematics undergraduate at the University of Cambridge in England, a position which has been described as "the greatest intellectual achievement attainable in Britain." Specifically, it is the person who a ...

", but she did not receive the title of senior wrangler, as at that time only men could receive degrees and therefore only men were eligible for the Senior Wrangler title. 1891:

of Britain became the first woman to join the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

, then called the New York Mathematical Society. 1894:

of Britain became the first woman on the first Council of the

. 1897: Four women attended the inaugural

International Congress of Mathematicians The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU). The Fields Medals, the Nevanlinna Prize (to be rename ...

in Zurich in 1897 -

, Iginia Massarini, Vera von Schiff, and

Charlotte Wedell Charlotte Bolette Sophie, Baroness Wedell-Wedellsborg (27 January 1862 – 22 July 1953) was one of four women mathematicians to attend the inaugural International Congress of Mathematicians, held in Zurich in 1897. Wedell was originally from De ...

20th Century

1911: Swedish mathematician

Louise Petrén-Overton Hedvig Louise Beata Petrén-Overton (August 12, 1880 – January 14, 1977) was a Swedish mathematician, the first woman in Sweden with a doctorate in mathematics. Early life and education Louise Petrén was one of twelve children of the vicar of ...

became the first woman in Sweden with a doctorate in mathematics. 1913: American mathematician Mildred Sanderson earned her PhD for a thesis that included an important theorem about modular invariants. 1918: German mathematician

Emmy Noether Amalie Emmy NoetherEmmy is the ''Rufname'', the second of two official given names, intended for daily use. Cf. for example the résumé submitted by Noether to Erlangen University in 1907 (Erlangen University archive, ''Promotionsakt Emmy Noethe ...

published Noether's (first) theorem, which states that any

differentiable In mathematics, a differentiable function of one real variable is a function whose derivative exists at each point in its domain. In other words, the graph of a differentiable function has a non-vertical tangent line at each interior point in its ...

symmetry Symmetry (from grc, συμμετρία "agreement in dimensions, due proportion, arrangement") in everyday language refers to a sense of harmonious and beautiful proportion and balance. In mathematics, "symmetry" has a more precise definit ...

of the

action Action may refer to: * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video game Film * Action film, a genre of film * ''Action'' (1921 film), a film by John Ford * ''Action'' (1980 fil ...

of a physical system has a corresponding

conservation law In physics, a conservation law states that a particular measurable property of an isolated physical system does not change as the system evolves over time. Exact conservation laws include conservation of energy, conservation of linear momentum, c ...

. 1927: American mathematician Anna Pell-Wheeler became the first woman to present a lecture at the

Colloquium. 1930: Cecilia Kreiger became the first woman to earn a PhD in mathematics in Canada, at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

. 1930s: British mathematician

Mary Cartwright Dame Mary Lucy Cartwright, (17 December 1900 – 3 April 1998) was a British mathematician. She was one of the pioneers of what would later become known as chaos theory. Along with J. E. Littlewood, Cartwright saw many solutions to a problem ...

proved her theorem, now known as Cartwright's theorem, which gives an estimate for the maximum modulus of an analytic function that takes the same value no more than p times in the unit disc. To prove the theorem she used a new approach, applying a technique introduced by

Lars Ahlfors Lars Valerian Ahlfors (18 April 1907 – 11 October 1996) was a Finnish mathematician, remembered for his work in the field of Riemann surfaces and his text on complex analysis. Background Ahlfors was born in Helsinki, Finland. His mother, S ...

for conformal mappings. 1943: Euphemia Haynes became the first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics, which she earned from

Catholic University of America The Catholic University of America (CUA) is a private Roman Catholic research university in Washington, D.C. It is a pontifical university of the Catholic Church in the United States and the only institution of higher education founded by U.S. ...

. 1944:

Helen Walker Helen Marion Walker (July 17, 1920 – March 10, 1968) was an American actress.Obituary ''Variety'', March 13, 1968, page 79. Biography 1920–1940: Early life Helen Marion Walker was born July 17, 1920 in Worcester, Massachusetts, the daughter ...

became the first female president of the

American Statistical Association The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on November 27, 1839, and is the second oldest continuousl ...

. 1949: American mathematician

Gertrude Mary Cox Gertrude Mary Cox (January 13, 1900 – October 17, 1978) was an American statistician and founder of the department of Experimental Statistics at North Carolina State University. She was later appointed director of both the Institute of Statist ...

became the first woman elected into the

International Statistical Institute The International Statistical Institute (ISI) is a professional association of statisticians. It was founded in 1885, although there had been international statistical congresses since 1853. The institute has about 4,000 elected members from gov ...

. 1951:

of Britain became the first female president of the

Mathematical Association The Mathematical Association is a professional society concerned with mathematics education in the UK. History It was founded in 1871 as the Association for the Improvement of Geometrical Teaching and renamed to the Mathematical Association in ...

. 1956: American mathematician

Gladys West Gladys Mae West (née Brown; born October 27, 1930) is an American mathematician known for her contributions to the mathematical modeling of the shape of the Earth, and her work on the development of the satellite geodesy models that were even ...

began collecting data from satellites at the

Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division The United States Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD), named for Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren, is located in King George County, Virginia, in close proximity to the largest fleet concentration area in the Navy. NSWCDD is ...

. Her calculations directly impacted the development of accurate

GPS system The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...

1960s

1960 and 1966: British mathematician

Lucy Joan Slater Lucy Joan Slater (5 January 1922 – 6 June 2008) was a mathematician who worked on hypergeometric functions, and who found many generalizations of the Rogers–Ramanujan identities. Early life Slater was born in 1922 and homeschooled for mu ...

published two books about the hypergeometric functions from the

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing hou ...

. 1961:

of Britain became the first woman to be President of the

London Mathematical Society The London Mathematical Society (LMS) is one of the United Kingdom's learned societies for mathematics (the others being the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), the Edinburgh Mathematical S ...

. 1962: American mathematician

Mina Rees Mina Spiegel Rees (August 2, 1902 – October 25, 1997) was an American mathematician. She was the first female President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1971) and head of the mathematics department of the Office of Na ...

became the first person to receive the Award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics from the

Mathematical Association of America The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university, college, and high school teachers; graduate and undergraduate students; pure a ...

. 1963:

Grace Alele-Williams Grace Alele-Williams (16 December 1932 – 25 March 2022) was a Nigerian professor of mathematics education, who made history as the first Nigerian woman to receive a doctorate, and the first Nigerian female vice-chancellor at the University ...

became the first Nigerian woman to earn a Ph.D when she defended her thesis in Mathematics Education at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

(

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

) 1964:

of Britain became the first woman to be given the

Sylvester Medal The Sylvester Medal is a bronze medal awarded by the Royal Society (London) for the encouragement of mathematical research, and accompanied by a £1,000 prize. It was named in honour of James Joseph Sylvester, the Savilian Professor of Geometry a ...

of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

. 1965: Scottish mathematician Elizabeth McHarg became the first female president of the

Edinburgh Mathematical Society The Edinburgh Mathematical Society is a mathematical society for academics in Scotland. History The Society was founded in 1883 by a group of Edinburgh school teachers and academics, on the initiative of Alexander Yule Fraser FRSE and Andrew Je ...

. 1966: American mathematician Mary L. Boas published ''

Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences ''Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences'' is a 1966 textbook by mathematician Mary L. Boas intended to develop skills in mathematical problem solving needed for junior to senior-graduate courses in engineering, physics, and chemistry. T ...

'', which was still widely used in college classrooms as of 1999. 1968:

of Britain became the first woman to be given the

De Morgan Medal The De Morgan Medal is a prize for outstanding contribution to mathematics, awarded by the London Mathematical Society. The Society's most prestigious award, it is given in memory of Augustus De Morgan, who was the first President of the societ ...

, the

’s premier award.🖉

1970s

1970: American mathematician

became the first female president of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

. 1971: American mathematician

Mary Ellen Rudin Mary Ellen Rudin (December 7, 1924 – March 18, 2013) was an American mathematician known for her work in set-theoretic topology. In 2013, Elsevier established the Mary Ellen Rudin Young Researcher Award, which is awarded annually to a young res ...

constructed the first

Dowker space In the mathematical field of general topology, a Dowker space is a topological space that is T4 but not countably paracompact. They are named after Clifford Hugh Dowker. The non-trivial task of providing an example of a Dowker space (and therefor ...

. 1971: The

Association for Women in Mathematics The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) is a professional society whose mission is to encourage women and girls to study and to have active careers in the mathematical sciences, and to promote equal opportunity for and the equal treatment o ...

(AWM) was founded. It is a professional society whose mission is to encourage women and girls to study and to have active careers in the mathematical sciences, and to promote equal opportunity for and the equal treatment of women and girls in the mathematical sciences. It is incorporated in the state of Massachusetts. 1971: The

established its

Joint Committee on Women in the Mathematical Sciences A joint or articulation (or articular surface) is the connection made between bones, ossicles, or other hard structures in the body which link an animal's skeletal system into a functional whole.Saladin, Ken. Anatomy & Physiology. 7th ed. McGraw ...

(JCW), which later became a joint committee of multiple scholarly societies. 1973: American mathematician

Jean Taylor Jean Ellen Taylor (born 1944) is an American mathematician who is a professor emerita at Rutgers University and visiting faculty at Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University. Biography Taylor was born in Northern Califor ...

published her dissertation on "Regularity of the Singular Set of Two-Dimensional Area-Minimizing Flat Chains Modulo 3 in R3" which solved a long-standing problem about length and smoothness of soap-film triple function curves. 1974: American mathematician

Joan Birman Joan Sylvia Lyttle Birman (born May 30, 1927, in New York CityLarry Riddle., ''Biographies of Women Mathematicians'', at Agnes Scott College) is an American mathematician, specializing in low-dimensional topology. She has made contributions to th ...

published the book ''

Braids, Links, and Mapping Class Groups ''Braids, Links, and Mapping Class Groups'' is a mathematical monograph on braid groups and their applications in low-dimensional topology. It was written by Joan Birman, based on lecture notes by James W. Cannon, and published in 1974 by the P ...

''. It has become a standard introduction, with many of today's researchers having learned the subject through it. 1975: American mathematician

Julia Robinson Julia Hall Bowman Robinson (December 8, 1919July 30, 1985) was an American mathematician noted for her contributions to the fields of computability theory and computational complexity theory—most notably in decision problems. Her work on Hilbe ...

became the first female mathematician elected to the National Academy of Sciences. 1975: Stella Cunliffe became the first female president of the

. 1976-1977:

Marjorie Rice Marjorie Ruth Rice (née Jeuck) (1923–2017) was an American amateur mathematician most famous for her discoveries of pentagonal tilings in geometry. Background Rice was born February 16, 1923, in St. Petersburg, Florida. Marjorie Rice was a ...

, an amateur American mathematician, discovered four new types of

tessellating A tessellation or tiling is the covering of a surface, often a plane, using one or more geometric shapes, called ''tiles'', with no overlaps and no gaps. In mathematics, tessellation can be generalized to higher dimensions and a variety of ge ...

pentagons in 1976 and 1977. 1979: American mathematician

Dorothy Lewis Bernstein Dorothy Lewis Bernstein (April 11, 1914 – February 5, 1988) was an American mathematician known for her work in applied mathematics, statistics, computer programming, and her research on the Laplace transform. She was the first woman to be ele ...

became the first female president of the

. 1979: American mathematician

became the first woman to present the

’s

Earle Raymond Hedrick Earle Raymond Hedrick (September 27, 1876 – February 3, 1943), was an American mathematician and a vice-president of the University of California. Education and career Hedrick was born in Union City, Indiana. After undergraduate work at ...

Lectures, intended to showcase skilled expositors and enrich the understanding of instructors of college-level mathematics.

1980s

1980:

Joséphine Guidy Wandja Joséphine Guidy Wandja (born 1945, also Guidy-Wandja) is an Ivorian mathematician. She is the first African woman with a PhD in mathematics. Early life She moved to France aged 14. She attended the Lycée Jules-Ferry in Paris, and later t ...

, from the

Ivory Coast Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire, officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital is Yamoussoukro, in the centre of the country, while its largest city and economic centre is ...

, became the first African woman to earn a doctorate in mathematics. 1981: Canadian-American mathematician

Cathleen Morawetz Cathleen Synge Morawetz (May 5, 1923 – August 8, 2017) was a Canadian mathematician who spent much of her career in the United States. Morawetz's research was mainly in the study of the partial differential equations governing fluid flow, parti ...

became the first woman to give the Gibbs Lecture of the

. 1981: American mathematician

Doris Schattschneider Doris J. Schattschneider (née Wood) is an American mathematician, a retired professor of mathematics at Moravian College. She is known for writing about tessellations and about the art of M. C. Escher,.. for helping Martin Gardner validate and p ...

became the first female editor of ''

Mathematics Magazine ''Mathematics Magazine'' is a refereed bimonthly publication of the Mathematical Association of America. Its intended audience is teachers of collegiate mathematics, especially at the junior/senior level, and their students. It is explicitly a j ...

'', a refereed bimonthly publication of the Mathematical Association of America.. 1982: Rebecca Walo Omana became the first female mathematics professor in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 1983: American mathematician

was elected the first female president of the

for the term of 1983-1984 (but was unable to complete her term as she was suffering from leukemia), and became the first female mathematician to be awarded a

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to ...

. 1986:

European Women in Mathematics European Women in Mathematics (EWM) is an international association of women working in the field of mathematics in Europe. The association participates in political and strategic work to promote the role of women in mathematics and offers its mem ...

(EWM) was founded as an organization in 1986 by

Bodil Branner Bodil Branner (born 5 February 1943, in Aarhus) is a retired Danish mathematician, one of the founders of European Women in Mathematics and a former chair of the Danish Mathematical Society. Her research concerned holomorphic dynamics and the his ...

Caroline Series Caroline Mary Series (born 24 March 1951) is an English mathematician known for her work in hyperbolic geometry, Kleinian groups and dynamical systems. Early life and education Series was born on 24 March 1951 in Oxford to Annette and George ...

Gudrun Kalmbach Gudrun Kalmbach (born 27 May 1937 in Großerlach) is a German mathematician and educator known for her contributions in the field of quantum logic and for the educational programmes she developed. Career After teacher training in mathematics a ...

Marie-Françoise Roy Marie-Françoise Roy (born 28 April 1950 in Paris) is a French mathematician noted for her work in real algebraic geometry. She has been Professor of Mathematics at the University of Rennes 1 since 1985 and in 2009 was made a ''Chevalier'' of the ...

, and

Dona Strauss Dona Anschel Papert Strauss (born April 1934) is a South African mathematician working in topology and functional analysis. Her doctoral thesis was one of the initial sources of pointless topology. She has also been active in the political left, ...

, inspired by the activities of the

in the USA. It is the "first and best known" of several organizations devoted to women in mathematics in Europe. 1987:

Eileen Poiani Eileen Louise Poiani is an American mathematician. She was the first female mathematics instructor at Saint Peter's University in New Jersey, where she is a professor of mathematics, former vice president, and special assistant to the president of ...

became the first female president of

Pi Mu Epsilon Pi Mu Epsilon ( or ) is the U.S. honorary national mathematics society. The society was founded at Syracuse University on , by Professor Edward Drake Roe, Jr, and currently has chapters at 371 institutions across the US. Goals Pi Mu Epsilon is d ...

. 1988: American mathematician

became the first woman to present the

’s J. Sutherland Frame Lectures.

1990s

1992: Australian mathematician

Cheryl Praeger Cheryl Elisabeth Praeger (born 7 September 1948, Toowoomba, Queensland) is an Australian mathematician. Praeger received BSc (1969) and MSc degrees from the University of Queensland (1974), and a doctorate from the University of Oxford in 197 ...

became the first female President of the

Australian Mathematical Society The Australian Mathematical Society (AustMS) was founded in 1956 and is the national society of the mathematics profession in Australia. One of the Society's listed purposes is to promote the cause of mathematics in the community by representing t ...

. 1992: American mathematician Gloria Gilmer became the first woman to deliver a major

National Association of Mathematicians The National Association of Mathematicians is a professional association for mathematicians in the US, especially African Americans and other minorities. It was founded in 1969.

lecture (it was the Cox-Talbot address). 1995: American mathematician Margaret Wright became the first female president of the

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is a professional society dedicated to applied mathematics, computational science, and data science through research, publications, and community. SIAM is the world's largest scientific socie ...

. 1995: Israeli-Canadian mathematician Leah Edelstein-Keshet became the first female president of the

Society for Mathematical Biology The Society for Mathematical Biology (SMB) is an international association co-founded in 1972 in the United States by George Karreman, Herbert Daniel Landahl and (initially chaired) by Anthony Bartholomay for the furtherance of joint scientific ac ...

. 1995:

Ina Kersten Ina Kersten (born 1946) is a German mathematician and former president of the German Mathematical Society. Her research concerns abstract algebra including the theory of field extensions and algebraic groups. She is a professor emerita at the Un ...

became the president 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 ...

, which meant she was the first woman to head the society. 1996: American mathematician

became the first woman to receive the

’s

Chauvenet Prize The Chauvenet Prize is the highest award for mathematical expository writing. It consists of a prize of $1,000 and a certificate, and is awarded yearly by the Mathematical Association of America in recognition of an outstanding expository article ...

. 1996: Katherine Heinrich became the first female President of the

Canadian Mathematical Society The Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS) (french: Société mathématique du Canada) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research, outreach, scholarship and education in Canada. It serves the ...

. 1996:

Ioana Dumitriu Ioana Dumitriu (born July 6, 1976) is a Romanian-American mathematician who works as a professor of mathematics at the University of California, San Diego.Putnam Fellow The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, often abbreviated to Putnam Competition, is an annual mathematics competition for undergraduate college students enrolled at institutions of higher learning in the United States and Canada (regard ...

. Putnam Fellows are the top five (or six, in case of a tie) scorers on The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition. 1998:

Melanie Wood Melanie Matchett Wood (born 1981) is an American mathematician at Harvard University who was the first woman to qualify for the U.S. International Mathematical Olympiad Team. She completed her PhD in 2009 at Princeton University (under Manjul Bha ...

became the first female American to make the U.S. International Math Olympiad Team. She won silver medals in the 1998 and 1999 International Mathematical Olympiads.

21st Century

2000s

2002: Susan Howson became the first woman to be given the

Adams Prize The Adams Prize is one of the most prestigious prizes awarded by the University of Cambridge. It is awarded each year by the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge and St John's College to a UK-based mathematician for distinguis ...

, given annually by the University of Cambridge to a British mathematician under the age of 40. 2002:

became the first American woman and second woman overall to be named a Putnam Fellow in 2002. Putnam Fellows are the top five (or six, in case of a tie) scorers on

William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, often abbreviated to Putnam Competition, is an annual list of mathematics competitions, mathematics competition for undergraduate college students enrolled at institutions of higher learning in th ...

. 2004: American

became the first woman to win the Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize for Outstanding Research in Mathematics by an Undergraduate Student. It is an annual award given to an undergraduate student in the US, Canada, or Mexico who demonstrates superior mathematics research. 2004: American

Alison Miller Alison Beth Miller is an American mathematician who was the first American female gold medalist at the International Mathematical Olympiad. She also holds the distinction of placing in the top 16 of the Putnam Competition four times, the last th ...

became the first female gold medal winner on the U.S.

International Mathematical Olympiad The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is a mathematical olympiad for pre-university students, and is the oldest of the International Science Olympiads. The first IMO was held in Romania in 1959. It has since been held annually, except i ...

Team. 2006: Polish-Canadian mathematician

Nicole Tomczak-Jaegermann Nicole Tomczak-Jaegermann FRSC (8 June 1945 – 17 June 2022) was a Polish-Canadian mathematician, a professor of mathematics at the University of Alberta, and the holder of the Canada Research Chair in Geometric Analysis.CRM-Fields-PIMS prize The CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize is the premier Canadian research prize in the mathematical sciences. It is awarded in recognition of exceptional research achievement in the mathematical sciences and is given annually by three Canadian mathematics institu ...

.Canada Research Chair in Geometric Analysis
retrieved 2010-12-03. 2006: Stefanie Petermichl, a German mathematical analyst then at the University of Texas at Austin, became the first woman to win the

Salem Prize The Salem Prize, in memory of Raphael Salem, is awarded each year to young researchers for outstanding contributions to the field of analysis. It is awarded by the School of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and was fo ...

, an annual award given to young mathematicians who have worked in Raphael Salem's field of interest, chiefly topics in analysis related to Fourier series.Short vita
retrieved 2016-07-04. She shared the prize with

Artur Avila Artur Avila Cordeiro de Melo (born 29 June 1979) is a Brazilian and naturalized French mathematician working primarily in the fields of dynamical systems and spectral theory. He is one of the winners of the 2014 Fields Medal, being the first La ...

. 2006: When Olga Gil Medrano became president of the

Royal Spanish Mathematical Society The Royal Spanish Mathematical Society (Spanish: ''Real Sociedad Matemática Española'', RSME) is the main professional society of Spanish mathematicians and represents Spanish mathematics within the European Mathematical Society (EMS) and the In ...

in 2006, she was the first woman elected to that position.

2010s

2011: Belgian mathematician

Ingrid Daubechies Baroness Ingrid Daubechies ( ; ; born 17 August 1954) is a Belgian physicist and mathematician. She is best known for her work with wavelets in image compression. Daubechies is recognized for her study of the mathematical methods that enhance i ...

became the first female president of the

International Mathematical Union The International Mathematical Union (IMU) is an international non-governmental organization devoted to international cooperation in the field of mathematics across the world. It is a member of the International Science Council (ISC) and supports ...

. 2012: Latvian mathematician Daina Taimina became the first woman to win the

Euler Book Prize The Euler Book Prize is an award named after Swiss mathematician and physicist Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) and given annually at the Joint Mathematics Meetings by the Mathematical Association of America to an outstanding book in mathematics that is ...

, for her 2009 book ''

Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes ''Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes'' is a book on crochet and hyperbolic geometry by Daina Taimiņa. It was published in 2009 by A K Peters, with a 2018 second edition by CRC Press. Topics The book is on the use of crochet to make ...

.'' 2012: The Working Committee for Women in Mathematics, Chinese Mathematical Society (WCWM-CMS) was founded; it is a national non-profit academic organization in which female mathematicians who are engaged in research, teaching, and applications of mathematics can share their scientific research through academic exchanges both in China and abroad. It is one of the branches of the

Chinese Mathematical Society The Chinese Mathematical Society (CMS, ) is an academic organization for Chinese mathematicians, with the official websitwww.cms.org.cn It is a member of China Association of Science and Technology. History The Chinese Mathematical Society (CMS) w ...

(CMS). 2013: The

African Women in Mathematics Association The African Women in Mathematics Association (AWMA) is a professional society whose mission is to promote mathematics to African women and girls, to support women's careers in mathematics, to create equal opportunity and equal treatment in the Af ...

was founded. This professional organization with over 300 members promotes mathematics to African women and girls and supports female mathematicians. 2014:

Maryam Mirzakhani Maryam Mirzakhani ( fa, مریم میرزاخانی, ; 12 May 1977 – 14 July 2017) was an Iranian mathematician and a professor of mathematics at Stanford University. Her research topics included Teichmüller theory, hyperbolic geometry, ...

became the first woman as well as the first Iranian to be awarded the

Fields Medal The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place every four years. The name of the award ho ...

, which she was awarded for "her outstanding contributions to the dynamics and geometry of

Riemann surfaces In mathematics, particularly in complex analysis, a Riemann surface is a connected one-dimensional complex manifold. These surfaces were first studied by and are named after Bernhard Riemann. Riemann surfaces can be thought of as deformed versio ...

and their moduli spaces." That year the Fields Medal was also awarded to

Martin Hairer Sir Martin Hairer (born 14 November 1975) is an Austrian-British mathematician working in the field of stochastic analysis, in particular stochastic partial differential equations. He is Professor of Mathematics at EPFL (École Polytechnique F ...

Manjul Bhargava Manjul Bhargava (born 8 August 1974) is a Canadian-American mathematician. He is the Brandon Fradd, Class of 1983, Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University, the Stieltjes Professor of Number Theory at Leiden University, and also holds A ...

, and

. It is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the

, and is often viewed as the greatest honor a mathematician can receive. 2016: French mathematician

Claire Voisin Claire Voisin (born 4 March 1962) is a French mathematician known for her work in algebraic geometry. She is a member of the French Academy of Sciences and holds the chair of Algebraic Geometry at the Collège de France. Work She is noted for ...

received the CNRS Gold medal, the highest scientific research award in France. 2016: The

's Women in Mathematics Committee was awarded the

's inaugural Athena Prize. 2017: Nouzha El Yacoubi became the first female president of the

African Mathematical Union The African Mathematical Union or Union Mathematique Africaine is an African organization dedicated to the development of mathematics in Africa. It was founded in 1976 in Rabat, Morocco, during the first Pan-African Congress of Mathematicians wi ...

. 2019: American mathematician

Karen Uhlenbeck Karen Keskulla Uhlenbeck (born August 24, 1942) is an American mathematician and one of the founders of modern geometric analysis. She is a professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of Texas at Austin, where she held the Sid W. Richard ...

became the first woman to win the

Abel Prize The Abel Prize ( ; no, Abelprisen ) is awarded annually by the King of Norway to one or more outstanding mathematicians. It is named after the Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel (1802–1829) and directly modeled after the Nobel Prizes. ...

, with the award committee citing "the fundamental impact of her work on analysis, geometry and mathematical physics." 2019: Marissa Kawehi Loving became the first

Native Hawaiian Native Hawaiians (also known as Indigenous Hawaiians, Kānaka Maoli, Aboriginal Hawaiians, First Hawaiians, or simply Hawaiians) ( haw, kānaka, , , and ), are the indigenous ethnic group of Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands. Hawaii ...

woman to earn a PhD in mathematics when she graduated from the

University of Illinois 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 University ...

in 2019. In addition to being Native Hawaiian, she is also black, Japanese, and Puerto Rican.

2020s

2022:

Maryna Viazovska Maryna Sergiivna Viazovska ( uk, Марина Сергіївна Вязовська, ; born 2 December 1984) is a Ukrainian mathematician known for her work in sphere packing. She is full professor and Chair of Number Theory at the Institute of M ...

was awarded the

in July 2022, making her the second woman (after

) and the first Ukrainian to be awarded it. That year the Fields Medal was also awarded to

Hugo Duminil-Copin Hugo Duminil-Copin (born 26 August 1985) is a French mathematician specializing in probability theory. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 2022. Biography The son of a middle school sports teacher and a former female dancer who became a primary ...

June Huh June Huh (full name: June E Huh, ; born 1983) is an Korean-American mathematician who is currently a professor at Princeton University. Previously, he was a professor at Stanford University. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 2022 and a MacAr ...

, and James Maynard. The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the

, and is often viewed as the greatest honor a mathematician can receive.

References

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mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

women in mathematics worldwide

Timeline

Early Common Era

18th Century

19th Century

20th Century

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

21st Century

2000s

2010s

2020s

See also

References