Vera Pless (nee Stepen; March 5, 1931 – March 2, 2020) was an American

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

who specialized in

combinatorics Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and an end in obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many appl ...

and

coding theory Coding theory is the study of the properties of codes and their respective fitness for specific applications. Codes are used for data compression, cryptography, error detection and correction, data transmission and data storage. Codes are stud ...

."Vera Pless", Biographies of Women Mathematicians

Agnes Scott College Agnes Scott College is a private women's liberal arts college in Decatur, Georgia. The college enrolls approximately 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The college is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church and is considered one of the ...

She was

professor emerita ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

at the

University of Illinois at Chicago The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a Public university, public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side, Chicago, Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus esta ...

Biography

Vera Stepen was born on Chicago's west side to a Russian Jewish immigrant family. As a teenager, she was more interested in playing the

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

than in mathematics, but she left high school two years early to go to 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 ...

, and finished her studies there in three years. Inspired by

Irving Kaplansky Irving Kaplansky (March 22, 1917 – June 25, 2006) was a mathematician, college professor, author, and amateur musician.O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Irving Kaplansky", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andr ...

to study

abstract algebra In mathematics, more specifically algebra, abstract algebra or modern algebra is the study of algebraic structures. Algebraic structures include groups, rings, fields, modules, vector spaces, lattices, and algebras over a field. The term ''a ...

,. she stayed at the university for a master's degree, which she earned in 1952 not long after marrying her husband, a high-energy experimental physicist. She began working in physics at the University of Chicago, but soon won a fellowship to study at

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

. Her husband became a professor at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

; Pless moved with him to Massachusetts, where she completed her doctorate from Northwestern in 1957 under the supervision of Kaplansky's student

Alex F. T. W. Rosenberg Alex F. T. W. Rosenberg (1926–2007) was a German-American mathematician who served as the editor of the '' Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society'' from 1960 to 1965, and of the '' American Mathematical Monthly'' from 1974 to 1976.. ...

, soon before the birth of her first child. Two years later, bored with being a stay-at-home mother, Pless began teaching courses at

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

, and a few years later began searching for a full-time job. Unable to obtain an academic position, she took a position at the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratory in Massachusetts. where she began working on

error-correcting code In computing, telecommunication, information theory, and coding theory, an error correction code, sometimes error correcting code, (ECC) is used for controlling errors in data over unreliable or noisy communication channels. The central idea is ...

s. During this time she helped to found an organization called Women in Science and Engineering, and at one point was president. She stayed at AFCRL from 1963 until 1972; a regular visitor and inspiration during this time was

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

mathematician and cryptographer

Andrew Gleason Andrew Mattei Gleason (19212008) was an American mathematician who made fundamental contributions to widely varied areas of mathematics, including the solution of Hilbert's fifth problem, and was a leader in reform and innovation in teaching at ...

. When the

Mansfield amendment Michael Joseph Mansfield (March 16, 1903 – October 5, 2001) was an American politician and diplomat. A Democrat, he served as a U.S. representative (1943–1953) and a U.S. senator (1953–1977) from Montana. He was the longest-serving Sena ...

banned the military from performing basic research, she moved to the

, where she worked as a research associate for

Project MAC Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence Lab ...

. She returned to Chicago in 1975 as a full professor of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her husband and youngest son had remained in the Boston area, and five years after the move, she and her husband divorced. She retired in 2006 and died at her home in

Oak Park, Illinois Oak Park is a village in Cook County, Illinois, adjacent to Chicago. It is the 29th-most populous municipality in Illinois with a population of 54,583 as of the 2020 U.S. Census estimate. Oak Park was first settled in 1835 and later incorporated in ...

on March 2, 2020 at the age of 88.

Awards and honors

In 2012 she became a fellow of 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, ...

Selected publications

* 2nd ed., 1989; 3rd ed., 1998.Reviews of ''Introduction to the Theory of Error-Correcting Codes'': S. N. Goel (1983), ; Alexander Barg (1990), ; K. A. Post, ; I. F. Blake (1982), ''IEEE Trans. Inf. Th.'', , reprinted in ''Proc. IEEE'', ; Robert J. McEliece (1984), ''American Scientist'', ; I. F. Blake, ; T. Helleseth, ; H. N. (1991), ''Math. Comp.'', ; John Baylis (1991), ''Math. Gaz.'', ; Steve Abbott (1999), ''Math. Gaz.'', * * *

References

External links

Personal homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pless, Vera 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians American women mathematicians Coding theorists University of Chicago alumni Northwestern University alumni University of Illinois Chicago faculty 1931 births 2020 deaths Fellows of the American Mathematical Society 20th-century women mathematicians 21st-century women mathematicians American Jews American people of Russian-Jewish descent 21st-century American women