Rhonda Jo Hughes (born Rhonda Weisberg September 28, 1947). is an American mathematician, the Helen Herrmann Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh language, Welsh: ) 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 Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as a ...

.Faculty profile
Bryn Mawr College, retrieved 2017-08-15

Education

Hughes grew up on the South Side of

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

. She attended Gage Park High School, where she was a cheerleader and valedictorian of her class. She studied engineering at the

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 ...

for one and a half years, then left school and worked for six months before resuming her education at the

University of Illinois at Chicago The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a public research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its campus is in the Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus established under the Universi ...

on an Illinois State Scholarship studying mathematics. There, she came under the mentorship of Yoram Sagher, who encouraged her to pursue graduate studies in mathematics. She earned a Ph.D. from the same university in 1975, under the supervision of Shmuel Kantorovitz, with a dissertation entitled ''Semi-Groups of Unbounded Linear Operators in Banach Space''.

Career

She began her teaching career at

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university in Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts, United States, with additional facilities in Boston and Grafton, as well as Talloires, France. Tufts also has several Doctor of Physical Therapy p ...

then spent a year as a

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 ...

at the

Bunting Institute The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, also known as the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, is an institute of Harvard University that fosters interdisciplinary research across the humanities, sciences, social sciences, arts ...

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was founded in 1879. In 1999, it was fully incorporated into Harvard Colle ...

. She moved to

in 1980, where she served as department chair for six years. She is the Helen Herrmann professor emeritus of mathematics at Bryn Mawr, and retired in 2011.. She was president 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 ...

(AWM) 1987–1988. She has served on the Commission on Physical Science, Mathematics, and Applications of the

United States National Research Council The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), also known as the National Academies, is a congressionally chartered organization that serves as the collective scientific national academy of the United States. The name i ...

. She served as an

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, ...

(AMS) Council member at large from 1988 to 1990. She and

Sylvia Bozeman Sylvia D. Trimble Bozeman (''née'' Sylvia Trimble, 1947) is an African American mathematician and Mathematics educator.''Notable Women in Mathematics, a Biographical Dictionary'', edited by Charlene Morrow and Teri Perl, Greenwood Press, 1998. pp ...

organized the Spelman-Bryn Mawr Summer Mathematics Program for female undergraduate students from 1992 to 1994. In 1998, they founded the EDGE Program (Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education), a transition program for women entering graduate programs in the mathematical sciences. The program is now in its twentieth year. Her most recent research involves ill-posed problems.

Honors

In 1998, Hughes received the Deborah and Franklin Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics. In 2004 she received the AAAS Mentor Award for Lifetime Achievement, in 2010 the Gweneth Humphreys Award for Mentorship of Undergraduate Women in Mathematics of the

, and in 2013 she received the Elizabeth Bingham Award of the Philadelphia Chapter of the

Association for Women in Science The Association for Women in Science (AWIS) was founded in 1971 at the annual Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) meeting. The organization aims to combat job discrimination, lower pay, and professional isolation. The ...

. In 2017, she was selected as a fellow of the

in the inaugural class.

References

External links

A Tribute to the Work of Professor Emeritus Rhonda Hughes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hughes, Rhonda 1947 births Living people 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians University of Illinois Chicago alumni Tufts University faculty Bryn Mawr College faculty Fellows of the Association for Women in Mathematics 20th-century American women mathematicians 21st-century American women mathematicians