Marjorie Lee Senechal (née Wikler, born 1939) is an American mathematician and historian of science, the Louise Wolff Kahn Professor Emerita in Mathematics and History of Science and Technology at

Smith College Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts, United States. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smit ...

and editor-in-chief of ''

The Mathematical Intelligencer ''The Mathematical Intelligencer'' is a mathematical journal published by Springer Science+Business Media that aims at a conversational and scholarly tone, rather than the technical and specialist tone more common among academic journals. Volumes ...

''. In mathematics, she is known for her work on

tessellation 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 ...

s and

quasicrystal A quasiperiodicity, quasiperiodic crystal, or quasicrystal, is a structure that is Order and disorder (physics), ordered but not Bravais lattice, periodic. A quasicrystalline pattern can continuously fill all available space, but it lacks trans ...

s; she has also studied ancient

Parthian Parthian may refer to: Historical * Parthian people * A demonym "of Parthia", a region of north-eastern of Greater Iran * Parthian Empire (247 BC – 224 AD) * Parthian language, a now-extinct Middle Iranian language * Parthian shot, an archery sk ...

electric batteries An electric battery is a source of electric power consisting of one or more electrochemical cells with external connections for powering electrical devices. When a battery is supplying power, its positive terminal is the cathode and its nega ...

and published several books about

silk Silk is a natural fiber, natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be weaving, woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is most commonly produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoon (silk), c ...

Biography

Senechal was born in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...

, the oldest of four children of Abraham Wikler, a

United States Public Health Service The United States Public Health Service (USPHS or PHS) is a collection of agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services which manages public health, containing nine out of the department's twelve operating divisions. The assistant s ...

physician. The family soon moved to

Lexington, Kentucky Lexington is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city coterminous with and the county seat of Fayette County, Kentucky, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census the city's population was 322,570, making it the List of ...

, and Senechal grew up as a "narco brat" on the grounds of the Lexington Narcotic Hospital, a

prison farm A prison farm (also known as a penal farm) is a large correctional facility where penal labor convicts work legally or illegally on a farm (in the wide sense of a productive unit), usually for manual labor, largely in the open air, such as in ...

for

drug addicts Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to use a drug or engage in a behavior that produces natural reward, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences. Repetitive drug use can ...

, where her father was associate director.. She was educated at the Training School of the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a Public University, public Land-grant University, land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky, United States. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical ...

, a small school with only one class in each grade; Senechal later wrote that the school's too-easy classwork, snobbish classmates, and anti-Jewish discrimination made her miserable. She left Lafayette High School after the 11th grade to begin her undergraduate studies as a pre-med at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

, but soon switched to mathematics, graduating in 1960.. While doing graduate studies at the

Illinois Institute of Technology The Illinois Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Illinois Tech and IIT, is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the m ...

, she married mathematician Lester Senechal, and moved to Arizona with him before completing her own degree. Nevertheless, she finished her Ph.D. in 1965, under the supervision of Abe Sklar; her thesis concerned

functional equation In mathematics, a functional equation is, in the broadest meaning, an equation in which one or several functions appear as unknowns. So, differential equations and integral equations are functional equations. However, a more restricted meaning ...

s. Unable to get her own faculty position at Arizona because of the anti-nepotism rules then in place, she and her husband visited Brazil, supported by a

Fulbright Scholarship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people ...

. They then moved to Massachusetts, where she took the faculty position at Smith that she would keep for the rest of her career. She eventually divorced Senechal, and married photographer Stan Sherer in 1989. She retired in 2007; a festival in 2006 honoring her impending retirement included the performance of a

musical play Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movement ...

that she wrote with The Talking Band member Ellen Maddow, loosely centered around the theme of

aperiodic tiling An aperiodic tiling is a non-periodic Tessellation, tiling with the additional property that it does not contain arbitrarily large periodic regions or patches. A set of tile-types (or prototiles) is aperiodic set of prototiles, aperiodic if copie ...

s and the life of amateur mathematician

Robert Ammann Robert Ammann (October 1, 1946 – May, 1994) was an List of amateur mathematicians, amateur mathematician who made several significant and groundbreaking contributions to the theory of quasicrystals and aperiodic tilings. Ammann attended Brandei ...

Awards and honors

Senechal won 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 A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary edu ...

Carl B. Allendoerfer Carl Barnett Allendoerfer (April 4, 1911 – September 29, 1974) was an American mathematician in the mid-twentieth century, known for his work in topology and mathematics education. Background Allendoerfer was born in Kansas City, the son ...

Award for excellence in expository writing in ''

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 ...

'' in 1982, for her article, "Which Tetrahedra Fill Space?" In 2008, her book ''American Silk 1830 – 1930'' won the Millia Davenport Publication Award of the Costume Society of America.Millia Davenport Publication Award
, Costume Society of America, retrieved 2013-07-15. 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, ...

Books

*''Crystalline Symmetries: An informal mathematical introduction'' (Alan Hilger, 1990) *'' Quasicrystals and Geometry'' (Cambridge University Press, 1995) *''Long Life to Your Children! A portrait of High Albania'' (with photographer S. Sherer, University of Massachusetts Press, 1997) *''Northampton's Century of Silk'' (City of Northampton, Massachusetts, 2004) *''American Silk 1830 – 1930: Entrepreneurs and Artifacts'' (with Jacqueline Field and Madelyn Shaw, Texas Tech University Press, 2007) *''I Died For Beauty:

Dorothy Wrinch Dorothy Maud Wrinch (12 September 1894 – 11 February 1976; married names Nicholson, Glaser) was a mathematician and biochemical theorist best known for her attempt to deduce protein structure using mathematical principles. She was a champion o ...

and the Cultures of Science'' (Oxford University Press, 2012).

References

External links

Home page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Senechal, Marjorie Lee 1939 births Living people 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Scientists from St. Louis Mathematicians from Missouri American historians of science University of Chicago alumni Illinois Institute of Technology alumni Smith College faculty Fellows of the American Mathematical Society 20th-century American women mathematicians 21st-century American women mathematicians