Ruth I. Michler (March 8, 1967 to November 1, 2000) was an American-born mathematician of German descent who lived and worked in the United States. She earned her Ph.D. in

Mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, and she was a tenured associate professor at the

University of North Texas The University of North Texas (UNT) is a public university, public research university located in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. Its main campus is in Denton, Texas, Denton, with a satellite campus in Frisco, Texas, Frisco. It serves as the ...

. She died at the age of 33 while visiting

Northeastern University Northeastern University (NU or NEU) is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was founded by the Boston Young Men's Christian Association in 1898 as an all-male instit ...

, after which at least three memorial conferences were held in her honor, and the Ruth I. Michler Memorial Prize was established in her memory.

Early years

Michler was the daughter of German mathematician and was born in

Ithaca, New York Ithaca () is a city in and the county seat of Tompkins County, New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake in the Finger Lakes region of New York (state), New York, Ithaca is the largest community in the Ithaca metrop ...

while her family was visiting

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 ...

from Germany. She grew up in Germany, living in

Tübingen Tübingen (; ) is a traditional college town, university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer (Neckar), Ammer rivers. about one in ...

Giessen Giessen, spelled in German (), is a town in the Germany, German States of Germany, state () of Hesse, capital of both the Giessen (district), district of Giessen and the Giessen (region), administrative region of Giessen. The population is appro ...

, and

Essen Essen () is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Dortmund, as well as ...

. She completed her undergraduate studies in 1988 at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

, graduating summa cum laude.

Doctoral studies and research

Michler earned her Ph.D. in Mathematics in 1993 from the University of California, Berkeley. Her dissertation is titled "Hodge components of cyclic homology of affine hypersurfaces." Her advisors were

Mariusz Wodzicki Mariusz Wodzicki (Polish: ; born 1956) is a Polish mathematician and professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, whose works primarily focus on analysis, algebraic k-theory, noncommutative geometry, and algebraic geometry. ...

and

Arthur Ogus Arthur Edward Ogus is an American mathematician. His research is in algebraic geometry; he has served as chair of the mathematics department at the University of California, Berkeley. Ogus did his undergraduate studies at Reed College, graduating ...

. She spent the academic year 1993-1994 as a postdoc at Queen's University working with Leslie Roberts. In 1994, she joined the tenure-track faculty at the University of North Texas where she earned tenure in 2000.

Memorial conferences and prize

Michler was killed in an accident in Boston on November 1, 2000, when she was struck by a construction vehicle while riding her bicycle. Several conferences were organized in her honor. Two conferences resulted in a volume of papers dedicated to her memory In 2007 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 ...

inaugurated the Ruth I. Michler Memorial Prize which is "awarded annually to a woman recently promoted to Associate Professor or an equivalent position in the mathematical sciences".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Michler, Ruth I. 1967 births 2000 deaths 20th-century American women mathematicians German women mathematicians Alumni of the University of Oxford University of California, Berkeley alumni University of North Texas faculty 20th-century American mathematicians 20th-century German mathematicians Mathematicians from New York (state) Algebraic geometers People from Ithaca, New York Road incident deaths in Massachusetts Cycling road incident deaths