Joanne Elliott (December 5, 1925 – March 5, 2023) was an American mathematician who specialized in

potential theory In mathematics and mathematical physics, potential theory is the study of harmonic functions. The term "potential theory" was coined in 19th-century physics when it was realized that the two fundamental forces of nature known at the time, namely g ...

, who was described as a "disciple" of her co-author, probability theorist

William Feller William "Vilim" Feller (July 7, 1906 – January 14, 1970), born Vilibald Srećko Feller, was a Croatian–American mathematician specializing in probability theory. Early life and education Feller was born in Zagreb to Ida Oemichen-Perc, a Cro ...

. She was also a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

of mathematics at

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

Early life and education

Elliott was born on December 5, 1925, in

Providence, Rhode Island Providence () is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Rhode Island, most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. The county seat of Providence County, Rhode Island, Providence County, it is o ...

, and graduated from

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

in 1947. She completed her Ph.D. at

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

in 1950, as part of a handful of "outstanding graduate students" working at Cornell in the post-World-War-II decade. Her dissertation, ''On Some Singular Integral Equations of the Cauchy Type'', was supervised by Harry Pollard.

Career and later life

After a year at

Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the e ...

, she worked at

Mount Holyoke College Mount Holyoke College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in South Hadley, Massachusetts, United States. It is the oldest member of the h ...

as an assistant professor from 1952 until 1956, when she moved to

Barnard College Barnard College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a grou ...

. In 1958, she was the supervisor of

Doris Stockton Doris G. Skillman Stockton (1924–2018) was an American mathematician specializing in partial differential equations and Banach spaces, and known for her many mathematics textbooks. For many years she was a professor of mathematics at the Universi ...

's doctorate at

. In 1961, as an associate professor at Barnard, she was funded by the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

to visit the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...

Princeton, New Jersey The Municipality of Princeton is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey, Borough of Princeton and Pri ...

for postdoctoral research. She also worked at the

Institute for Defense Analyses The Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) is an American non-profit corporation that administers three federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) – the Systems and Analyses Center (SAC), Science and Technology Policy Institute, t ...

in Princeton in the early 1960s. She came to

in 1964, at a time when Rutgers had a much higher number of female faculty than many mathematics departments then or later. Among her graduate students at Rutgers was

Edward R. Dougherty Edward R. Dougherty is an American mathematician, electrical engineer, Robert M. Kennedy '26 Chair, and Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering at Texas A&M University. He is also the Scientific Director of the Center for Bioinformatic ...

, later a distinguished professor of electrical engineering at

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, TA&M, or TAMU) is a public university, public, Land-grant university, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas, United States. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of ...

. She chaired the Rutgers mathematics department from 1974 to 1977. Elliott retired from Rutgers in 1991, in a year in which the university was cutting costs by offering early retirement to its employees. Elliott died in

Titusville, New Jersey Titusville is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Hopewell Township, Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 census, the population was 633. The area includes a post office with its own ZI ...

on March 5, 2023, at the age of 97.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Elliott, Joanne 1925 births 2023 deaths 21st-century American women 20th-century American mathematicians Brown University alumni Cornell University alumni Swarthmore College faculty Mount Holyoke College faculty Barnard College faculty Brown University faculty Rutgers University faculty People from Providence, Rhode Island 20th-century American women mathematicians