A Brief History of Women and Mathematics at Wisconsin

Charlotte Pengra PhD 1901	Elizabeth Stafford PhD 1930	Mary Ellen Rudin taught at UW 1959-1991	Georgia Benkart taught at UW 1974-2006
Sylvia Wiegand PhD 1974	Leslie Smith Professor & Chair	Julie Mitchell Professor of Math	Gloria Mari-Beffa Professor of Math

1886

The first American Woman to receive a PhD. in math (from Columbia University) was Winifred Edgerton Merill who was born and raised in Ripon, WI.

1901

The third person to receive a PhD in Math at UW was Charlotte Elvira Pengra . She was also the sixth American Woman to receive a PhD in mathematics.

1907

The fourth person to receive a PhD in Math at UW was Florence Eliza Allen. She taught in the math department at Wisconsin for 30 years (1914-1944) retiring with the title Assitant Professor Emeritus. (her PhD advisor was Van Vleck)

1930

Elizabeth Stafford receives a Math PhD (advisor Mark Ingraham) She later married Ivan Sokolnikoff (PhD 1931), who was on the faculty from 1927-1944. She taught from 1944-1954 as an Assistant Professor with tenure.

1959-1991

Mary Ellen Rudin taught at UW during these years. She was promoted from Lecturer to Full Professor (in 1971)

1971

Sylvia Young Wiegand receives a PhD (advisor Larry Levy). Sylvia and her husband Roger moved to Nebraska after she graduated. She served as president of the AWM (from 1997-99)

1974-2006

Georgia Benkart taught at UW until she retired. She will be President-Elect of the AWM in 2008.

1976-84

Linda Rothschild taught at UW during these years. She was president of AWM from 1983-85.

1991-2000

Thaleia Zariphopoulou taught at UW.

1992-present

Gloria Mari-beffa teaches at UW. Initially hired as a Faculty Associate, Gloria was promoted to Associate Professor in 2006. She has done a lot of work in outreach.

1995-98?

Cheryl Grood, a grad student at the time, organizes the Noetherian Ring at UW Madison

1993-1998

Claudia Neuhauser taught at UW.

1997-present

Leslie Smith at UW. Leslie was elected Chair in 2005.

1998-2006

Eleny Ionel taught at UW.

2004-present

Julie Mitchell teaches at UW.

Here is a list of Van Vleck Postdocs at Wisconsin (since 1996). Nine (18%) out of these 50 were/are women.

LIST

of all women who received a PhD in mathematics from Wisconsin. (The list is more or less complete and based on first names. There may be errors due to names which could be either male or female and foreign names. Some interesting observations:

• As of Nov. 2007, 116 of the 1058 PhDs granted by the UW Math Department were earned by women. (roughly 11%)
• A little more than half of these 116 PhDs were earned in the last 20 years (since 1988). In contrast, half of ALL math PhDs were earned since 1976.
• In the last five years, women earned:

  2 of the 10 PhDs granted in 2003 or 20%
  1 of the 10 PhDs granted in 2004 or 10%
  5 of the 22 PhDs granted in 2005 or 22%
  5 of the 17 PhDs granted in 2006 or 29%
  5 of the 19 PhDs granted in 2007 or 21%
  13 of the 125 Van Vlecks (1974-2007) were women (10.4%)

Statistics

People	Number
PhDs	113
total faculty	11
current faculty	3

UW Math Professors who have had the most female PhDs

Professor	Number	Video
Brualdi	10	Video
Kurtz	5(Math) +3(Statistics)	Video
Isaacs	5
Benkart	4	Video
M. Rudin	4	Video

Warning the videos are best viewed over a high speed ethernet connection.

Other Resources and links

• MIT Resources for Women in Mathematics
• Princeton IAS Program for Women and Mathematics