Claudia Alison Spiro (March 4, 1956 – January 4, 2023) was an American mathematician who worked primarily in

Number Theory Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic functions. Number theorists study prime numbers as well as the properties of mathematical objects constructed from integers (for example ...

and

data science Data science is an interdisciplinary academic field that uses statistics, scientific computing, scientific methods, processing, scientific visualization, algorithms and systems to extract or extrapolate knowledge from potentially noisy, stru ...

. She is known for her work in Number Theory and for having an Erdős number of 1.

Early life

Spiro was born on March 4, 1956 to Robert Spiro and Lorraine Shatz. Sprio had a younger brother and younger sister. Her father remarried to in addition to Constance Mobley who gave her a half sister and two half brothers. Spiro grew up in

Altadena, California Altadena () is an unincorporated area, and census-designated place in the San Gabriel Valley and the Verdugos regions of Los Angeles County, California. Directly north of Pasadena, California, Pasadena, it is located approximately from Downtow ...

where she enjoyed attending the rose bowl parades. Spiro was taught the musical instaments: the clarient and the piano. In her childhood she loved mathematics, as early as 5 years old she would do difficult mental arithimetic such as triple digit multiplication problems. She was also a

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

player.

Education

Sprio obtained Bachelors degree and Masters degree both in mathematics at

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private university, private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small g ...

. In 1977, she started her work on her PhD at

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...

where she worked with her advisor Paul Trevier Bateman." On October 15, 1981, she obtained her PhD for which she wrote her dissertation "The Frequency with Which an Integral-Valued, Prime-Independent, Multiplicative or Additive Function of n Divides a Polynomial Function of n.

Career

After finishing up the work for her PhD in th summer of 1981, Spiro was accepted the position of

George William Hill George William Hill (March 3, 1838 – April 16, 1914) was an American astronomer and mathematician. Working independently and largely in isolation from the wider scientific community, he made major contributions to celestial mechanics and t ...

and

Emmy Noether Amalie Emmy Noether (23 March 1882 – 14 April 1935) was a German mathematician who made many important contributions to abstract algebra. She also proved Noether's theorem, Noether's first and Noether's second theorem, second theorems, which ...

Research Instructor in the mathematics department at SUNY in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is a Administrative divisions of New York (state), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and county seat of Erie County, New York, Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of ...

, which started September of that year. In 2006, Spiro started working at

University of Phoenix University of Phoenix (UoPX) is a Private university, private For-profit higher education in the United States, for-profit university headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. Founded in 1976, the university confers certificates and degrees at the Ac ...

. She was hired in 2012 as an as Assistant Professor at

Southern Polytechnic State University Southern Polytechnic State University (also called Southern Poly; abbreviated SPSU) was a public university, public, co-educational, state university in Marietta, Georgia, United States approximately northwest of downtown Atlanta. Until 2015, ...

, which was consolidated into

Kennesaw State University Kennesaw State University (KSU) is a public research university in the U.S. state of Georgia with two campuses in the Atlanta metropolitan area, one in the Kennesaw area and the other in Marietta on a combined of land. The school was founded ...

, to assist with their newly created Teacher Education program.

Research and contributions

Determining whether the number of divisors of some number n and n+k had infinitely many solutions for some k was solved by Spiro. Spiro proved that for the case d(n)=d(n + 5040), there are infinitely many solutions.

Roger Heath-Brown David Rodney "Roger" Heath-Brown is a British mathematician working in the field of analytic number theory. Education He was an undergraduate and graduate student of Trinity College, Cambridge; his research supervisor was Alan Baker. Career ...

and Chris Pinner built upon her work to show this is true for all integer values of k. From 1991 to 1996 she was a reviewer of 27 papers in number theory for the journal

Math Reviews ''Mathematical Reviews'' is a journal published by the American Mathematical Society (AMS) that contains brief synopses, and in some cases evaluations, of many articles in mathematics, statistics, and theoretical computer science. The AMS also pu ...

Awards and honors

She is one of the few women to have an

Erdős Number The Erdős number () describes the "collaborative distance" between mathematician Paul Erdős and another person, as measured by authorship of mathematical papers. The same principle has been applied in other fields where a particular individual ...

of 1.

Personal life

Spiro married Robert Silverman and had three children: Joel, Sarah, and Isaac. She was also an active member in her church, going on missions and leading Bible studies.

Death and legacy

Spiro died of cancer on January 4, 2023.

Selected publications

* *

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Spiro, Claudia Alison 1956 births 2023 deaths University at Buffalo faculty Kennesaw State University faculty University of Phoenix faculty 20th-century American women mathematicians 21st-century American women mathematicians California Institute of Technology alumni University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni