María Josefa Wonenburger Planells (July 17, 1927, in Montrove,

Oleiros, Galicia Oleiros (Spanish and Galician: ) is a municipality of northwestern Spain in the province of A Coruña, in the autonomous community of Galicia. The whole municipality is basically a residential area and the vast majority of its residents commute o ...

– June 14, 2014, in

A Coruña A Coruña (; ; also informally called just Coruña; historical English: Corunna or The Groyne) is a city and municipality in Galicia, Spain. It is Galicia's second largest city, behind Vigo. The city is the provincial capital of the province ...

) was a Galician mathematician who did research in the United States and Canada. She is known for her work on

group theory In abstract algebra, group theory studies the algebraic structures known as group (mathematics), groups. The concept of a group is central to abstract algebra: other well-known algebraic structures, such as ring (mathematics), rings, field ( ...

. She was the first Spaniard to obtain 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 ...

for doctoral studies in mathematics.

Biography

Wonenburger's father's family was Alsatian and her mother's family was from

Valencia Valencia ( , ), formally València (), is the capital of the Province of Valencia, province and Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Valencian Community, the same name in Spain. It is located on the banks of the Turia (r ...

. She had a passion for mathematics from an early age, though her parents wanted her to study engineering so that she could participate in the family business, a

foundry A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...

. After completing her undergraduate studies at the Universidad Central de Madrid, now known as

Complutense University of Madrid The Complutense University of Madrid (, UCM; ) is a public research university located in Madrid. Founded in Alcalá in 1293 (before relocating to Madrid in 1836), it is one of the oldest operating universities in the world, and one of Spain's ...

, she began her doctoral work there. A Fulbright scholar, her studies took her to

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

where she completed her Ph.D. in 1957 under

Nathan Jacobson Nathan Jacobson (October 5, 1910 – December 5, 1999) was an American mathematician. Biography Born Nachman Arbiser in Warsaw, Jacobson emigrated to America with his family in 1918. He graduated from the University of Alabama in 1930 and was awa ...

. She returned to Spain three years later with a scholarship to Instituto de Matemáticas Jorge Juan del CSIC. At the end of the grant, she moved to Canada where her first PhD student was

Robert Moody Robert Vaughan Moody, (; born November 28, 1941) is a Canadian mathematician. He is the co-discoverer of Kac–Moody algebra, a Lie algebra, usually infinite-dimensional, that can be defined through a generalized root system. "Almost simultane ...

. In 1966, she moved to the United States to teach at the

University of Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo (commonly referred to as UB, University at Buffalo, and sometimes SUNY Buffalo) is a public university, public research university in Buffalo, New York, Buffalo and Amherst, New York, United States. ...

, and the following year, in 1967, she received a permanent post as a professor at the

University of Indiana Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. The system has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IU Indianapolis. The flagship campus of In ...

, where she remained until 1983. Because of her mother's illness, she returned to La Coruña in 1983, and remained away from the academic world, except some sporadic collaboration with institutions such as AGAPEMA. Her research mainly focused on

and the theory of

Lie algebras In mathematics, a Lie algebra (pronounced ) is a vector space \mathfrak g together with an operation called the Lie bracket, an alternating bilinear map \mathfrak g \times \mathfrak g \rightarrow \mathfrak g, that satisfies the Jacobi identi ...

. She studied the orthogonal group and its corresponding projective group. She directed eight doctoral theses; in addition to Moody, her students included Stephen Berman, Bette Warren, Edward George Gibson, and Richard Lawrence Marcuson. In 2010, the Galician government and University of A Coruña established the María Josefa Wonenburger Planells Prize in her honor. The award recognizes women with achievements in science and technology.''María Wonenburger, la matemática que saltó a la fama con 80 años'' https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/08/21/ciencia/1566404155_299955.html

References

* Souto Salorio, M. J. & Tarrío Tobar, A.D. (2006). ''María Josefa Wonenburger Planells. Mujer y matemática''. La Gaceta de la RSME 9: 339–364.
search on author MJ Wonenburger
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wonenburger, Maria 1927 births 2014 deaths 20th-century Spanish mathematicians Yale University alumni People from A Coruña (comarca) University at Buffalo faculty Indiana University faculty Group theory Spanish women mathematicians 20th-century Spanish women scientists Scientists from Galicia (Spain) Complutense University of Madrid alumni