Bodil Branner (born 5 February 1943, in

Aarhus Aarhus (, , ; officially spelled Århus from 1948 until 1 January 2011) is the second-largest city in Denmark and the seat of Aarhus municipality, Aarhus Municipality. It is located on the eastern shore of Jutland in the Kattegat sea and app ...

) 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

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

Education and career

Branner studied mathematics and physics at

Aarhus University Aarhus University (, abbreviated AU) is a public research university. Its main campus is located in Aarhus, Denmark. It is the second largest and second oldest university in Denmark. The university is part of the Coimbra Group, the Guild, and Ut ...

, where mathematician Svend Bundgaard was one of her mentors, and in 1967 earned a master's degree (the highest degree then available) under the supervision of Leif Kristensen. She had intended to travel to the U.S. for a doctorate, but her husband, a chemist, took an industry job in Copenhagen. Branner could not get a job as a high school teacher because she did not have a teaching qualification, but Bundgaard found her a position as a faculty assistant for Frederik Fabricius-Bjerre at the

Technical University of Denmark The Technical University of Denmark (), often simply referred to as DTU, is a polytechnic university and school of engineering. It was founded in 1829 at the initiative of Hans Christian Ørsted as Denmark's first polytechnic, and it is today ran ...

. Despite this not beginning as an actual faculty position, she eventually earned tenure there in the 1970s. European Women in Mathematics was founded as an organization in 1986 by Branner,

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 March 24, 1951, in Oxford to Annette and Georg ...

, Gudrun Kalmbach,

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 th ...

, and Dona Strauss, inspired by the activities of 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 ...

in the USA. Branner was the first woman to lead the Danish Mathematical Society, which she did from 1998 to 2002. She retired in 2008.

Recognition

A symposium in honor of Branner's 60th birthday was held in

Holbæk Holbæk () is a town in Denmark and the County seat, seat of Holbæk municipality with a population of 30,903 (1 January 2025).festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

in 2006. In 2012, she became one of the inaugural

fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

s 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, ...

.List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society
retrieved 2015-02-16.

Selected publications

*. *. *. *.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Branner, Bodil Living people 20th-century Danish mathematicians 21st-century Danish mathematicians Aarhus University alumni Academic staff of the Technical University of Denmark Fellows of the American Mathematical Society 1943 births Academics from Aarhus 20th-century women mathematicians 21st-century women mathematicians