This is a timeline of women in mathematics.

Timeline

Classical Age

* Before 350:

Pandrosion Pandrosion of Alexandria () was a mathematician in fourth-century-AD Alexandria, discussed in the ''Mathematical Collection'' of Pappus of Alexandria and known for having possibly developed an approximate method for doubling the cube. She is likel ...

, a

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

mathematician known for an approximate solution to

doubling the cube Doubling the cube, also known as the Delian problem, is an ancient geometry, geometric problem. Given the Edge (geometry), edge of a cube, the problem requires the construction of the edge of a second cube whose volume is double that of the first ...

and a simplified exact solution to the construction of the

geometric mean In mathematics, the geometric mean is a mean or average which indicates a central tendency of a finite collection of positive real numbers by using the product of their values (as opposed to the arithmetic mean which uses their sum). The geometri ...

. * c. 350–370 until 415: The lifetime of

Hypatia Hypatia (born 350–370 – March 415 AD) was a Neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician who lived in Alexandria, Egypt (Roman province), Egypt: at that time a major city of the Eastern Roman Empire. In Alexandria, Hypatia was ...

, a Greek

Neoplatonist Neoplatonism is a version of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a series of thinkers. Among the common id ...

philosopher in

Roman Egypt Roman Egypt was an imperial province of the Roman Empire from 30 BC to AD 642. The province encompassed most of modern-day Egypt except for the Sinai. It was bordered by the provinces of Crete and Cyrenaica to the west and Judaea, ...

who was the first well-documented woman in mathematics.

18th Century

* 1748: Italian mathematician Maria Agnesi published the first book discussing both differential and integral calculus, called ''Instituzioni analitiche ad uso della gioventù italiana''. * 1759: French mathematician

Émilie du Châtelet Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet (; 17 December 1706 – 10 September 1749) was a French mathematician and physicist. Her most recognized achievement is her philosophical magnum opus, ''Institutions de Physique'' ...

's translation and commentary on

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton () was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. Newton was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment that followed ...

’s work ''

Principia Mathematica The ''Principia Mathematica'' (often abbreviated ''PM'') is a three-volume work on the foundations of mathematics written by the mathematician–philosophers Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell and published in 1910, 1912, and 1 ...

'' was published posthumously; it is still considered the standard French translation. * c. 1787 – 1797: Self-taught Chinese astronomer

Wang Zhenyi Wang Zhenyi (; born November 30, 1924), also known as Zhen-yi Wang, is a Chinese pathophysiologist and hematologist who is a professor emeritus of Medicine and Pathophysiology at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU). He is most well known ...

published at least twelve books and multiple articles on astronomy and mathematics.

19th Century

* 1827: French mathematician

Sophie Germain Marie-Sophie Germain (; 1 April 1776 – 27 June 1831) was a French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. Despite initial opposition from her parents and difficulties presented by society, she gained education from books in her father's lib ...

saw her

theorem In mathematics and formal logic, a theorem is a statement (logic), statement that has been Mathematical proof, proven, or can be proven. The ''proof'' of a theorem is a logical argument that uses the inference rules of a deductive system to esta ...

, known as

Sophie Germain's theorem In number theory, Sophie Germain's theorem is a statement about the divisibility of solutions to the equation x^p + y^p = z^p of Fermat's Last Theorem for odd prime p. Formal statement Specifically, Sophie Germain proved that at least one of the n ...

, published in a footnote of a book by the mathematician

Adrien-Marie Legendre Adrien-Marie Legendre (; ; 18 September 1752 – 9 January 1833) was a French people, French mathematician who made numerous contributions to mathematics. Well-known and important concepts such as the Legendre polynomials and Legendre transforma ...

. In this theorem Germain proved that if ''x'', ''y'', and ''z'' are integers and if ''x''⁵ + ''y''⁵ = ''z''⁵ then either ''x'', ''y'', or ''z'' must be divisible by 5. Germain's theorem was a major step toward proving

Fermat's Last Theorem In number theory, Fermat's Last Theorem (sometimes called Fermat's conjecture, especially in older texts) states that no three positive number, positive integers , , and satisfy the equation for any integer value of greater than . The cases ...

for the case where n equals 5. * 1829: The first public examination of an American girl in

geometry Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...

was held. * 1858:

Florence Nightingale Florence Nightingale (; 12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was an English Reform movement, social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during th ...

became the first female member of the

Royal Statistical Society The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is an established statistical society. It has three main roles: a British learned society for statistics, a professional body for statisticians and a charity which promotes statistics for the public good. ...

. * 1873:

Sarah Woodhead Sarah Woodhead (1851–1912) was the first woman to take and pass a Tripos examination. In particular, she was the first woman to take, and to pass, the Mathematical Tripos exam, which she did in 1873. Education Woodhead’s family had long belon ...

of Britain became the first woman to take the

Cambridge Mathematical Tripos The Mathematical Tripos is the mathematics course that is taught in the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. Origin In its classical nineteenth-century form, the tripos was a distinctive written examination of undergraduate s ...

Exam, which she passed. * 1874: Russian mathematician

Sofya Kovalevskaya Sofya Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya (; born Korvin-Krukovskaya; – 10 February 1891) was a Russian mathematician who made noteworthy contributions to analysis, partial differential equations and mechanics. She was a pioneer for women in mathematics a ...

became the first woman to earn a doctorate (in the modern sense) in mathematics. * 1880:

Charlotte Angas Scott Charlotte Angas Scott (8 June 1858 – 10 November 1931) was a British mathematician who made her career in the United States; she was influential in the development of American mathematics, including the mathematical education of women. Scott ...

of Britain obtained special permission to take the

Exam, as women were not normally allowed to sit for the exam. She came eighth on the Tripos of all students taking them, but due to her sex, the title of "eighth wrangler," a high honour, went officially to a male student. At the ceremony, however, after the seventh wrangler had been announced, all the students in the audience shouted her name. Because she could not attend the award ceremony, Scott celebrated her accomplishment at Girton College where there were cheers and clapping at dinner, and a special evening ceremony where the students sang "

See the Conquering Hero Comes ''Judas Maccabaeus'' ( HWV 63) is an oratorio in three acts composed in 1746 by George Frideric Handel based on a libretto written by Thomas Morell. The oratorio was devised as a compliment to the victorious Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cum ...

", and she received an ode written by a staff member, and was crowned with laurels. * 1885:

became the first British woman to receive a doctorate in mathematics, which she received from the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

. * 1886:

Winifred Edgerton Merrill Winifred Edgerton (September 24, 1862 – September 6, 1951) was born in Ripon, Wisconsin. She was the first woman to receive a degree from Columbia University and the first American woman to receive a PhD in mathematics.Kelly, S. E. and R ...

became the first American woman to earn a PhD in mathematics, which she earned from Columbia University. * 1888: The Kovalevskaya top, one of a brief list of known examples of integrable rigid body motion, was discovered by

Sofia Kovalevskaya Sofya Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya (; born Korvin-Krukovskaya; – 10 February 1891) was a Russian mathematician who made noteworthy contributions to analysis, partial differential equations and mechanics. She was a pioneer for women in mathematics a ...

. * 1889:

was appointed as the first female professor in Northern Europe, at the

Stockholm University Stockholm University (SU) () is a public university, public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, social ...

. * 1890:

Philippa Fawcett Philippa Garrett Fawcett (4 April 1868 – 10 June 1948) was an English mathematician and educator. She was the first woman to obtain the top score in the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos exams. She taught at Newnham College, Cambridge, and at the n ...

of Britain became the first woman to obtain the top score in the

Exam. Her score was 13 per cent higher than the second highest score. When the women's list was announced, Fawcett was described as "above the

senior wrangler The Senior Wrangler is the top mathematics undergraduate at the University of Cambridge in England, a position which has been described as "the greatest intellectual achievement attainable in Britain". Specifically, it is the person who achiev ...

", but she did not receive the title of senior wrangler, as at that time only men could receive degrees and therefore only men were eligible for the Senior Wrangler title. * 1891:

of Britain became the first woman to join the

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, ...

, then called the New York Mathematical Society. * 1891: Cornelia Fabri of Italy became the first woman to earn a doctorate in math from the

University of Pisa The University of Pisa (, UniPi) is a public university, public research university in Pisa, Italy. Founded in 1343, it is one of the oldest universities in Europe. Together with Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa and Sant'Anna School of Advanced S ...

. * 1894:

of Britain became the first woman on the first Council of the

. * 1897: Four women attended the inaugural

International Congress of Mathematicians The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU). The Fields Medals, the IMU Abacus Medal (known before ...

in Zurich in 1897 -

, Iginia Massarini, Vera von Schiff, and

Charlotte Wedell Charlotte Bolette Sophie, Baroness Wedell-Wedellsborg (27 January 1862 – 22 July 1953) was one of four women mathematicians to attend the inaugural International Congress of Mathematicians, held in Zurich in 1897. Wedell was originally from Den ...

20th Century

* 1911: Swedish mathematician

Louise Petrén-Overton Hedvig Louise Beata Petrén-Overton (August 12, 1880 – January 14, 1977) was a Swedish mathematician, the first woman in Sweden with a doctorate in mathematics. Early life and education Louise Petrén was one of twelve children of the vicar of ...

became the first woman in Sweden with a doctorate in mathematics. * 1913: American mathematician Mildred Sanderson earned her PhD for a thesis that included an important theorem about modular invariants. * 1918: German mathematician

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 ...

published Noether's (first) theorem, which states that any

differentiable In mathematics, a differentiable function of one real variable is a function whose derivative exists at each point in its domain. In other words, the graph of a differentiable function has a non- vertical tangent line at each interior point in ...

symmetry Symmetry () in everyday life refers to a sense of harmonious and beautiful proportion and balance. In mathematics, the term has a more precise definition and is usually used to refer to an object that is Invariant (mathematics), invariant und ...

of the

action Action may refer to: * Action (philosophy), something which is done by a person * Action principles the heart of fundamental physics * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video gam ...

of a physical system has a corresponding

conservation law In physics, a conservation law states that a particular measurable property of an isolated physical system does not change as the system evolves over time. Exact conservation laws include conservation of mass-energy, conservation of linear momen ...

. * 1927: American mathematician Anna Pell-Wheeler became the first woman to present a lecture at the

Colloquium. * 1930: Cecilia Kreiger became the first woman to earn a PhD in mathematics in Canada, at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

. * 1930s: British mathematician

Mary Cartwright Dame Mary Lucy Cartwright (17 December 1900 – 3 April 1998) was a British mathematician. She was one of the pioneers of what would later become known as chaos theory. Along with J. E. Littlewood, Cartwright saw many solutions to a prob ...

proved her theorem, now known as Cartwright's theorem, which gives an estimate for the maximum modulus of an analytic function that takes the same value no more than p times in the unit disc. To prove the theorem she used a new approach, applying a technique introduced by

Lars Ahlfors Lars Valerian Ahlfors (18 April 1907 – 11 October 1996) was a Finnish mathematician, remembered for his work in the field of Riemann surfaces and his textbook on complex analysis. Background Ahlfors was born in Helsinki, Finland. His mothe ...

for conformal mappings. * 1943: Euphemia Haynes became the first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics, which she earned from

Catholic University of America The Catholic University of America (CUA) is a private Catholic research university in Washington, D.C., United States. It is one of two pontifical universities of the Catholic Church in the United States – the only one that is not primarily a ...

. * 1944:

Helen Walker Helen Marion Walker (July 17, 1920 – March 10, 1968) was an American actress.Obituary '' Variety'', March 13, 1968, page 79. Biography 1920–1940: Early life Helen Marion Walker was born July 17, 1920, in Worcester, Massachusetts, the daught ...

became the first female president of the

American Statistical Association The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts, on November 27, 1839, and is the second-oldest continuous ...

. * 1949: American mathematician

Gertrude Mary Cox Gertrude Mary Cox (January 13, 1900 – October 17, 1978) was an American statistician and founder of the department of Experimental Statistics at North Carolina State University. She was later appointed director of both the Institute of Statistic ...

became the first woman elected into the

International Statistical Institute The International Statistical Institute (ISI) is a professional association of statisticians. At a meeting of the Jubilee Meeting of the Royal Statistical Society, statisticians met and formed the agreed statues of the International Statistical ...

. * 1949: Maria Laura Lopes became the first woman in Brazil to earn a PhD in mathematics. * 1951:

of Britain became the first female president of the

Mathematical Association The Mathematical Association is a professional society concerned with mathematics education in the UK. History It was founded in 1871 as the Association for the Improvement of Geometrical Teaching and renamed to the Mathematical Association in ...

. * 1956: American mathematician

Gladys West Gladys Mae West (née Brown; born October 27, 1930) is an American mathematician. She is known for her contributions to mathematical modeling of the shape of the Earth, and her work on the development of satellite geodesy models, that were lat ...

began collecting data from satellites at the

Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division The United States Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD), named for Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren, is located in King George County, Virginia, in close proximity to the largest fleet concentration area in the Navy. NSWCDD is ...

. Her calculations directly impacted the development of accurate

GPS system The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based hyperbolic navigation system owned by the United States Space Force and operated by Mission Delta 31. It is one of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that provide geoloca ...

1960s

* 1960 and 1966: British mathematician

Lucy Joan Slater Lucy Joan Slater (5 January 1922 – 6 June 2008) was a mathematician who worked on hypergeometric functions, and who found many generalizations of the Rogers–Ramanujan identities. Early life Slater was born in 1922 and homeschooled for muc ...

published two books about the

hypergeometric function In mathematics, the Gaussian or ordinary hypergeometric function 2''F''1(''a'',''b'';''c'';''z'') is a special function represented by the hypergeometric series, that includes many other special functions as specific or limiting cases. It is ...

s from the

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

. * 1961:

of Britain became the first woman to be President of the

London Mathematical Society The London Mathematical Society (LMS) is one of the United Kingdom's Learned society, learned societies for mathematics (the others being the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), the Edinburgh ...

. * 1962: American mathematician

Mina Rees Mina Spiegel Rees (August 2, 1902 – October 25, 1997) was an American mathematician. She is known for her assistance to the US Government during WWII, as well as making several breakthroughs for women in science. Her most notable accomplishment ...

became the first person to receive the Award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics from the

Mathematical Association of America The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary edu ...

. * 1963:

Grace Alele-Williams Grace Alele-Williams (16 December 1932 – 25 March 2022) was a Nigerian professor of mathematics education, who made history as the first Nigerian woman to receive a doctorate, and the first Nigerian female vice-chancellor at the University ...

became the first Nigerian woman to earn a Ph.D when she defended her thesis in Mathematics Education at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

(

U.S. The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...

) * 1964:

of Britain became the first woman to be given the

Sylvester Medal The Sylvester Medal is a bronze medal awarded by the Royal Society for the encouragement of mathematical research, and accompanied by a £1,000 prize. It was named in honour of James Joseph Sylvester, the Savilian chair of geometry, Savilian Prof ...

of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

. * 1965: Scottish mathematician

Elizabeth McHarg Elizabeth Adam McHarg (22 April 1923 – 29 April 1999) was a Scottish mathematician who, in 1965, became the first female president of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society. Education McHarg studied at the Glasgow High School for Girls and then a ...

became the first female president of the

Edinburgh Mathematical Society The Edinburgh Mathematical Society is a mathematical society for academics in Scotland. History The Society was founded in 1883 by a group of Edinburgh school teachers and academics, on the initiative of Alexander Yule Fraser FRSE and Andrew ...

. * 1966: American mathematician Mary L. Boas published ''

Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences ''Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences'' is a 1966 textbook by mathematician Mary L. Boas intended to develop skills in mathematical problem solving needed for junior to senior-graduate courses in engineering, physics, and chemistry. T ...

'', which was still widely used in college classrooms as of 1999. * 1968:

of Britain became the first woman to be given the

De Morgan Medal The De Morgan Medal is a prize for outstanding contribution to mathematics, awarded by the London Mathematical Society. The Society's most prestigious award, it is given in memory of Augustus De Morgan, who was the first President of the society ...

, the

’s premier award.🖉

1970s

* 1970: American mathematician

became the first female president of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

. * 1971: American mathematician

Mary Ellen Rudin Mary Ellen Rudin (December 7, 1924 – March 18, 2013) was an American mathematician known for her work in set-theoretic topology. In 2013, Elsevier established the Mary Ellen Rudin Young Researcher Award, which is awarded annually to a young res ...

constructed the first

Dowker space In the mathematics, mathematical field of general topology, a Dowker space is a topological space that is normal space, T4 but not paracompact space, countably paracompact. They are named after Clifford Hugh Dowker. The non-trivial task of providin ...

. * 1971: 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) was founded. It 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 of women and girls in the mathematical sciences. It is incorporated in the state of Massachusetts. * 1971: The

established its

Joint Committee on Women in the Mathematical Sciences A joint or articulation (or articular surface) is the connection made between bones, ossicles, or other hard structures in the body which link an animal's skeletal system into a functional whole.Saladin, Ken. Anatomy & Physiology. 7th ed. McGraw- ...

(JCW), which later became a joint committee of multiple scholarly societies. * 1973: American mathematician

Jean Taylor Jean Ellen Taylor (born 1944) is an American mathematician who is a professor emerita at Rutgers University and visiting faculty at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University. Biography Taylor was born in Northern Cal ...

published her dissertation on "Regularity of the Singular Set of Two-Dimensional Area-Minimizing Flat Chains Modulo 3 in R3" which solved a long-standing problem about length and smoothness of soap-film triple function curves. * 1974:

Joan Birman Joan Sylvia Lyttle Birman (born May 30, 1927, in New York CityLarry Riddle., ''Biographies of Women Mathematicians'', at Agnes Scott College) is an American mathematician, specializing in low-dimensional topology. She has made contributions to th ...

published the book '' Braids, Links, and Mapping Class Groups''. * 1975: American mathematician

Julia Robinson Julia Hall Bowman Robinson (December 8, 1919July 30, 1985) was an American mathematician noted for her contributions to the fields of computability theory and computational complexity theory—most notably in decision problems. Her work on Hilber ...

became the first female mathematician elected to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

. * 1975:

Stella Cunliffe Stella Vivian Cunliffe (12 January 1917 – 20 January 2012) was a British statistician. She was the first female president of the Royal Statistical Society. Education and early career Cunliffe was educated at Parsons Mead School, Ashtead, Su ...

became the first female president of the

. * 1976-1977: Marjorie Rice, an amateur American mathematician, discovered four new types of

tessellating A tessellation or tiling is the covering of a surface, often a plane (mathematics), plane, using one or more geometric shapes, called ''tiles'', with no overlaps and no gaps. In mathematics, tessellation can be generalized to high-dimensiona ...

pentagons in 1976 and 1977. * 1979: American mathematician Dorothy Lewis Bernstein became the first female president of the

. * 1979: American mathematician

became the first woman to present the

’s

Earle Raymond Hedrick Earle Raymond Hedrick (September 27, 1876 – February 3, 1943), was an American mathematician and a vice-president of the University of California. Education and career Hedrick was born in Union City, Indiana. After undergraduate work at ...

Lectures, intended to showcase skilled expositors and enrich the understanding of instructors of college-level mathematics.

1980s

* 1981: Canadian-American mathematician Cathleen Morawetz became the first woman to give the

Gibbs Lecture The Josiah Willard Gibbs Lectureship (also called the Gibbs Lecture) of the American Mathematical Society is an annually awarded mathematical prize, named in honor of Josiah Willard Gibbs. The prize is intended not only for mathematicians, but also ...

of the

. * 1981: American mathematician

Doris Schattschneider Doris J. Schattschneider (née Wood) is an American mathematician, a retired professor of mathematics at Moravian College. She is known for writing about tessellations and about the art of M. C. Escher,.. for helping Martin Gardner validate and ...

became the first female editor of ''

Mathematics Magazine ''Mathematics Magazine'' is a refereed bimonthly publication of the Mathematical Association of America. Its intended audience is teachers of collegiate mathematics, especially at the junior/senior level, and their students. It is explicitly a j ...

'', a refereed bimonthly publication of the

.. * 1982: Rebecca Walo Omana became the first female mathematics professor in the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...

. * 1983: American mathematician

was elected the first female president of the

for the term of 1983-1984 (but was unable to complete her term as she was suffering from leukemia), and became the first female mathematician to be awarded a

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and ...

. * 1986: European Women in Mathematics (EWM) was founded as an organization in 1986 by

Bodil Branner Bodil Branner (born 5 February 1943, in Aarhus) is a retired Danish mathematician, one of the founders of European Women in Mathematics and a former chair of the Danish Mathematical Society. Her research concerned holomorphic dynamics and the h ...

Caroline Series Caroline Mary Series (born 24 March 1951) is an English mathematician known for her work in hyperbolic geometry, Kleinian groups and dynamical systems. Early life and education Series was born on March 24, 1951, in Oxford to Annette and Georg ...

Gudrun Kalmbach Gudrun Kalmbach (born 27 May 1937 in Großerlach) is a German mathematician and educator known for her contributions in the field of quantum logic and for the educational programmes she developed. Career After teacher training in mathematics a ...

Marie-Françoise Roy Marie-Françoise Roy (born 28 April 1950 in Paris) is a French mathematician noted for her work in real algebraic geometry. She has been Professor of Mathematics at the University of Rennes 1 since 1985 and in 2009 was made a ''Chevalier'' of th ...

, and

Dona Strauss Dona Anschel Papert Strauss (born April 1934) is a South African mathematician working in topology and functional analysis. Her doctoral thesis was one of the initial sources of pointless topology. She has also been active in the political left, ...

, inspired by the activities of the

in the USA. It is the "first and best known" of several organizations devoted to women in mathematics in Europe. * 1987:

Eileen Poiani Eileen Louise Poiani is an American mathematician. She was the first female mathematics instructor at Saint Peter's University in New Jersey, where she is a professor of mathematics, former vice president, and special assistant to the president of ...

became the first female president of

Pi Mu Epsilon Pi Mu Epsilon ( or PME) is the U.S. honorary national mathematics society. The society currently has chapters at 371 institutions across the U.S. History Pi Mu Epsilon was founded at Syracuse University on , by Professor Edward Drake Roe, Jr. Pi ...

. * 1988: American mathematician

became the first woman to present the

’s J. Sutherland Frame Lectures.

1990s

* 1992: Australian mathematician

Cheryl Praeger Cheryl Elisabeth Praeger (born 7 September 1948, Toowoomba, Queensland) is an Australian mathematician. Praeger received BSc (1969) and MSc degrees from the University of Queensland (1974), and a doctorate from the University of Oxford in 197 ...

became the first female President of the

Australian Mathematical Society The Australian Mathematical Society (AustMS) was founded in 1956 and is the national society of the mathematics profession in Australia. One of the society's listed purposes is to promote the cause of mathematics in the community by representing ...

. * 1992: American mathematician Gloria Gilmer became the first woman to deliver a major

National Association of Mathematicians The National Association of Mathematicians is a professional association for mathematicians in the US, especially African Americans and other minorities. It was founded in 1969.

lecture (it was the Cox-Talbot address). * 1992: Ruth Hendry became first (and so far only) female undergraduate to be officially named as

Senior Wrangler The Senior Wrangler is the top mathematics undergraduate at the University of Cambridge in England, a position which has been described as "the greatest intellectual achievement attainable in Britain". Specifically, it is the person who achiev ...

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

Mathematical Tripos The Mathematical Tripos is the mathematics course that is taught in the Faculty of Mathematics, University of Cambridge, Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. Origin In its classical nineteenth-century form, the tripos was a di ...

examination. * 1995: American mathematician Margaret Wright became the first female president of the

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is a professional society dedicated to applied mathematics, computational science, and data science through research, publications, and community. SIAM is the world's largest scientific soci ...

. * 1995: Israeli-Canadian mathematician Leah Edelstein-Keshet became the first female president of the

Society for Mathematical Biology The Society for Mathematical Biology (SMB) is an international association co-founded in 1972 in the United States by George Karreman, Herbert Daniel Landahl and (initially chaired) by Anthony Bartholomay for the furtherance of joint scientific ac ...

. * 1995:

Ina Kersten Ina Kersten (born 1946) is a German mathematician and former president of the German Mathematical Society. Her research concerns abstract algebra including the theory of field extensions and algebraic groups. She is a professor emerita at the Univ ...

became the president of the

German Mathematical Society The German Mathematical Society (, DMV) is the main professional society of German mathematicians and represents German mathematics within the European Mathematical Society (EMS) and the International Mathematical Union (IMU). It was founded in ...

, which meant she was the first woman to head the society. * 1996: American mathematician

became the first woman to receive the

’s

Chauvenet Prize The Chauvenet Prize is an annual award given by the Mathematical Association of America in recognition of an outstanding expository article on a mathematical topic. It consists of a prize of $1,000 and a certificate. The Chauvenet Prize was the ...

. * 1996:

Katherine Heinrich Katherine A. Heinrich (born 21 February 1954) is a mathematician and mathematics teacher who was the first female president of the Canadian Mathematical Society. Her research interests include graph theory and the theory of combinatorial designs. ...

became the first female President of the

Canadian Mathematical Society The Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS; French: ''Société mathématique du Canada'') is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to advancing mathematical research, outreach, scholarship and education in Canada. The Society se ...

. * 1996: Ioana Dumitriu, a New York University sophomore from Romania, became the first woman to be named a

Putnam Fellow The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, often abbreviated to Putnam Competition, is an annual mathematics competition for undergraduate college students enrolled at institutions of higher learning in the United States and Canada (regar ...

. Putnam Fellows are the top five (or six, in case of a tie) scorers on The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition. * 1998:

was the first woman to lead the

Danish Mathematical Society The Danish Mathematical Society (Dansk Matematisk Forening) is a society of Danish mathematicians founded in 1873 at the University of Copenhagen, a year after the French Mathematical Society. According to the society website, it has "the purpose ...

, which she did from 1998 to 2002. * 1998:

Melanie Wood Melanie Matchett Wood (born 1981) is an American mathematician and Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University who was the first woman to qualify for the U.S. International Mathematical Olympiad Team. She completed her PhD in 2009 at Princeton ...

became the first female American to make the U.S. International Math Olympiad Team. She won silver medals in the 1998 and 1999 International Mathematical Olympiads.

21st Century

2000s

* 2002: Susan Howson became the first woman to be given the

Adams Prize The Adams Prize is a prize awarded each year by the Faculty of Mathematics at St John's College to a UK-based mathematician for distinguished research in mathematical sciences. The prize is named after the mathematician John Couch Adams and wa ...

, given annually by the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

to a British mathematician under the age of 40. * 2002:

became the first American woman and second woman overall to be named a Putnam Fellow in 2002. Putnam Fellows are the top five (or six, in case of a tie) scorers on

William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, often abbreviated to Putnam Competition, is an annual list of mathematics competitions, mathematics competition for undergraduate college students enrolled at institutions of higher learning in th ...

. * 2004: American

became the first woman to win the Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize for Outstanding Research in Mathematics by an Undergraduate Student. It is an annual award given to an undergraduate student in the US, Canada, or Mexico who demonstrates superior mathematics research. * 2004: American Alison Miller became the first female gold medal winner on the U.S.

International Mathematical Olympiad The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is a mathematical olympiad for pre-university students, and is the oldest of the International Science Olympiads. It is widely regarded as the most prestigious mathematical competition in the wor ...

Team. * 2006: Polish-Canadian mathematician

Nicole Tomczak-Jaegermann Nicole Tomczak-Jaegermann FRSC (8 June 1945 – 17 June 2022) was a Polish-Canadian mathematician, a professor of mathematics at the University of Alberta, and the holder of the Canada Research Chair in Geometric Analysis.CRM-Fields-PIMS prize The CRM-Fields-PIMS Prize is the premier Canadian research prize in the mathematical sciences. It is awarded in recognition of exceptional research achievement in the mathematical sciences and is given annually by three Canadian mathematics institu ...

.Canada Research Chair in Geometric Analysis
retrieved 2010-12-03. * 2006:

Stefanie Petermichl Stefanie Petermichl (born 1971) is a German mathematical analyst who works as a professor at the University of Toulouse, in France.mathematical analyst then at the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...

at Austin, became the first woman to win the

Salem Prize The Salem Prize, in memory of Raphael Salem, is awarded each year to young researchers for outstanding contributions to the field of analysis. It is awarded by the School of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and was fou ...

, an annual award given to young mathematicians who have worked in Raphael Salem's field of interest, chiefly topics in analysis related to Fourier series.Short vita
retrieved 2016-07-04. She shared the prize with

Artur Avila Artur Avila Cordeiro de Melo (; born 29 June 1979) is a Brazilian mathematician working primarily in the fields of dynamical systems and spectral theory. He is one of the winners of the 2014 Fields Medal, being the first Latin American and lusop ...

. * 2006: When Olga Gil Medrano became president of the

Royal Spanish Mathematical Society The Royal Spanish Mathematical Society ( Spanish: ''Real Sociedad Matemática Española'', RSME) is the main professional society of Spanish mathematicians and represents Spanish mathematics within the European Mathematical Society (EMS) and th ...

in 2006, she was the first woman elected to that position.

2010s

* 2011: Belgian mathematician

Ingrid Daubechies Baroness Ingrid Daubechies ( ; ; born 17 August 1954) is a Belgian-American physicist and mathematician. She is best known for her work with wavelets in image compression. Daubechies is recognized for her study of the mathematical methods that ...

became the first female president of the

International Mathematical Union The International Mathematical Union (IMU) is an international organization devoted to international cooperation in the field of mathematics across the world. It is a member of the International Science Council (ISC) and supports the International ...

. * 2012: Latvian mathematician

Daina Taimina Daina may refer to: * Daina (Latvia), Latvian folksong * Daina (Lithuania), Lithuanian folksong * Daina (name), Latvian and Lithuanian female given name * Daina (organization), Lithuanian cultural organization that functioned in (1899–1915) Ot ...

became the first woman to win the

Euler Book Prize The Euler Book Prize is an award named after Swiss mathematician and physicist Leonhard Euler (1707–1783) and given annually at the Joint Mathematics Meetings by the Mathematical Association of America to an outstanding book in mathematics that ...

, for her 2009 book ''

Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes ''Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes'' is a book on crochet and hyperbolic geometry by Daina Taimiņa. It was published in 2009 by A K Peters, with a 2018 second edition by CRC Press. Topics The book is on the use of crochet to make ...

.'' * 2012: The Working Committee for Women in Mathematics, Chinese Mathematical Society (WCWM-CMS) was founded; it is a national non-profit academic organization in which female mathematicians who are engaged in research, teaching, and applications of mathematics can share their scientific research through academic exchanges both in China and abroad. It is one of the branches of the

Chinese Mathematical Society The Chinese Mathematical Society (CMS, ) is an academic organization for Chinese mathematicians, with the official websitwww.cms.org.cn It is a member of China Association of Science and Technology. History The Chinese Mathematical Society (C ...

(CMS). * 2013: The

African Women in Mathematics Association The African Women in Mathematics Association (AWMA) is a professional society whose mission is to promote mathematics to African women and girls, to support women's careers in mathematics, to create equal opportunity and equal treatment in the Af ...

was founded. This professional organization with over 300 members promotes mathematics to African women and girls and supports female mathematicians. * 2014:

Maryam Mirzakhani Maryam Mirzakhani (, ; 12 May 1977 – 14 July 2017) was an Iranian mathematician and a professor of mathematics at Stanford University. Her research topics included Teichmüller space, Teichmüller theory, hyperbolic geometry, ergodic the ...

became the first woman as well as the first Iranian to be awarded the

Fields Medal The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of Mathematicians, International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place e ...

, which she was awarded for "her outstanding contributions to the dynamics and geometry of

Riemann surfaces In mathematics, particularly in complex analysis, a Riemann surface is a connected one-dimensional complex manifold. These surfaces were first studied by and are named after Bernhard Riemann. Riemann surfaces can be thought of as deformed vers ...

and their moduli spaces." That year the Fields Medal was also awarded to

Martin Hairer Sir Martin Hairer (born 14 November 1975) is an Austrian-British mathematician working in the field of stochastic analysis, in particular stochastic partial differential equations. He is Professor of Mathematics at EPFL (École Polytechnique F� ...

Manjul Bhargava Manjul Bhargava (born 8 August 1974) is a Canadian-American mathematician. He is the Brandon Fradd, Class of 1983, Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University, the Stieltjes Professor of Number Theory at Leiden University, and also holds A ...

, and

. It is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the

, and is often viewed as the greatest honor a mathematician can receive. * 2016: French mathematician

Claire Voisin Claire Voisin (born 4 March 1962) is a French mathematician known for her work in algebraic geometry. She is a member of the French Academy of Sciences and held the chair of algebraic geometry at the Collège de France from 2015 to 2020. Work Sh ...

received the CNRS Gold medal, the highest scientific research award in France. * 2016: The

's Women in Mathematics Committee was awarded the

's inaugural Athena Prize. * 2017: Nouzha El Yacoubi became the first female president of the

African Mathematical Union The African Mathematical Union (or Union Mathematique Africaine) is an African organization dedicated to the development of mathematics in Africa. It was founded in 1976 in Rabat, Morocco, during the first Pan-African Congress of Mathematicians ...

. * 2019: American mathematician

Karen Uhlenbeck Karen Keskulla Uhlenbeck ForMemRS (born August 24, 1942) is an American mathematician and one of the founders of modern geometric analysis. She is a professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of Texas at Austin, where she held the Sid W ...

became the first woman to win the Abel Prize, with the award committee citing "the fundamental impact of her work on analysis, geometry and mathematical physics." * 2019: Marissa Kawehi Loving became the first

Native Hawaiian Native Hawaiians (also known as Indigenous Hawaiians, Kānaka Maoli, Aboriginal Hawaiians, or simply Hawaiians; , , , and ) are the Indigenous peoples of Oceania, Indigenous Polynesians, Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands. Hawaiʻi was set ...

woman to earn a PhD in mathematics when she graduated from the

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

in 2019. In addition to being Native Hawaiian, she is also black, Japanese, and Puerto Rican.

2020s

* 2020: Lisa Piccirillo published a mathematical proof in the journal ''

Annals of Mathematics The ''Annals of Mathematics'' is a mathematical journal published every two months by Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study. History The journal was established as ''The Analyst'' in 1874 and with Joel E. Hendricks as t ...

'' determining that the

Conway knot In mathematics, specifically in knot theory, the Conway knot (or Conway's knot) is a particular knot (mathematics), knot with 11 crossings, named after John Horton Conway. It is related by mutation (knot theory), mutation to the Kinoshita–Te ...

is not a smoothly slice knot, answering an unsolved problem in

knot theory In topology, knot theory is the study of knot (mathematics), mathematical knots. While inspired by knots which appear in daily life, such as those in shoelaces and rope, a mathematical knot differs in that the ends are joined so it cannot be und ...

first proposed over fifty years prior by English mathematician

John Horton Conway John Horton Conway (26 December 1937 – 11 April 2020) was an English mathematician. He was active in the theory of finite groups, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory and coding theory. He also made contributions to many b ...

. * 2020: Sarah B. Hart was appointed to be the

Gresham Professor of Geometry The Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, London, gives free educational lectures to the general public. The college was founded for this purpose in 1597, when it created seven professorships; this was later increased to ten. Geometry is one ...

Gresham College Gresham College is an institution of higher learning located at Barnard's Inn Hall off Holborn in Central London, England that does not accept students or award degrees. It was founded in 1597 under the Will (law), will of Sir Thomas Gresham, ...

, making her the first woman to hold this position "since the chair was established in 1597". * 2022:

Maryna Viazovska Maryna Sergiivna Viazovska (, ; born 2 December 1984) is a Ukrainian mathematician known for her work in sphere packing. She is a full professor and Chair of Number Theory Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to ...

was awarded the

in July 2022, making her the second woman (after

), the second person born in the Ukrainian SSR and the first with a degree from a Ukrainian university to ever receive it. That year the Fields Medal was also awarded to

Hugo Duminil-Copin Hugo Duminil-Copin (born 26 August 1985) is a French mathematician specializing in probability theory. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 2022. Biography The son of a middle school sports teacher and a former female dancer who became a primary ...

June Huh June E Huh (; born June 9, 1983) is an American mathematician who is currently a professor at Princeton University. Previously, he was a professor at Stanford University. He was awarded the Fields Medal and a MacArthur Fellowship in 2022. He ha ...

, and James Maynard. The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the

, and is often viewed as the greatest honor a mathematician can receive. * 2023:

was awarded the

Wolf Prize in Mathematics The Wolf Prize in Mathematics is awarded almost annually by the Wolf Foundation in Israel. It is one of the six Wolf Prizes established by the Foundation and awarded since 1978; the others are in Agriculture, Chemistry, Medicine, Physics and Arts. ...

in February 2023, becoming the first woman to receive this award.

References

{{History of mathematics

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 ...

Women A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl. Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functional u ...

Timeline

Classical Age

18th Century

19th Century

20th Century

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

21st Century

2000s

2010s

2020s

See also

References