Because Pathway's is about your future, we've devoted this space to our collective past. As a new feature, we'll be showcasing women in science, math and engineering who have paved the path before you. While we can't include everyone, each of the following women stands out for her accomplishments.
Two of our first featured biography subjects, Reatha King Clark and Edna Piasano, were challenged to overcome racial and ethnic discrimination as well as bias and prejudice on the basis of their gender, in blazing their paths to success in their chosen fields. The stories of Caroline Herschel and Emmy Noether also illustrate the secret struggles women of centuries past faced in gaining recognition for their achievements, lest we forget how far we have come.
- Reatha Clark King: Woman of Science
- Edna Paisano: Using Statistics to Aid Communities
- Caroline Herschel: Voices from the Well
- Emmy Noether: A Modern Mathematics Pioneer
We'll update our Bios page as often as possible, BUT if you are interested in learning more right now . . . Check out this amazing site on Women Mathematicians! And click here for more Bios of Women Mathematicians.
Reatha Clark King: Woman of
Science
During prehistoric times, women gathered food for their communities, learning by experimentation to distinguish hundreds of edible and medicinal plant. As seasons cycled, these women observed the effect that heat and rain had on certain plants, under what conditions those plants thrived and when they were first available for use. These early botanists were the first women scientists. Today, women continue to make significant contributions in every branch of science.
Mathematics plays a very important role in science, as it does in many other quantitative fields. (Quantitative means "capable of being measured by quantity.") In their work, scientists frequently rely on such mathematical concepts such as logic, deductive reasoning, probability, measurement, computation, and data analysis.
One woman who has used her mathematical ability to successfully pursue a career in science is Dr. Reatha Clark King (b 1938). Raised in rural Georgia, where she worked long hours in cotton fields and on landlords' farms, she originally considered becoming a teacher at her local high school. However she fell in love with chemistry at Clark College and went on to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Chicago. Although King had more educational opportunities as a woman than her predecessors, she was sometimes lonely being one of the few women in the university's graduate chemistry program.
Upon completing her studies, King did research work in fluorine flame colorimetry for six years at the National Bureau of Standards. She returned to academia to become a professor of chemistry and associate dean at York College, and then moved on to earn her third graduate degree, this time in business. The President of Metropolitan State University in Minnesota for eleven years, she worked to promote opportunities for minorities and women in higher education. Currently, King is the president and executive director of the General Mills Foundation, a contributer to the area of education, health and social action, the arts, and cultural affairs.
King's belief in quality education for all is summarized by her observation: " I realized early in life that education is our best enabling resource, that technical skills are important, and that my stamina for championing educational opportunity for all people is inexhaustible."
As excerpted from Agnesi to Zeno, Key Curriculum Press, P.O. Box 2304, Berkeley, CA 94702, 1-800-995-MATH
Edna Paisano: Using Statistic to Aid Communities
When Edna Lee Paisano (b 1948) was growing up on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation in Sweetwater, Idaho she learned to preserve her families traditions and make them a part of her daily life. For example, her grandmother taught her how to make moccasins and beaded purses, which they sold to help support the family. Additionally, owning the fishing, hunting, and mineral rights to the land in the Nez Perce area made it easier for the tribe to be self-sufficient, and in the teepee in the backyard of Paisano's home, the family regularly prepared, dried, and smoked the meat of deer, elk, and moose
Although she loved her community and the wilderness areas of the reservation, Paisano decided she had to leave them to successfully work for the betterment of her community. (In this endeavor, she followed in her mother's foot steps. When Paisano was a child, her mother, Frances was awarded the Leo Reano Memorial Award from the National Educational Association for her education efforts on behalf of American Indians.) A talented mathematics and science student, Paisano attended the University of Washington and earned a graduate degree in social work, studying statics in the process. During her time at the university, she worked with the American Indian community in Seattle, Washington, and was heavily involved in an eventually successful effort to establish a cultural center for American Indians at Seattle's Fort Lawton.
As a program specialist, Paisano visited reservations spending time with tribal governments to provide assistance and suggestions for the betterment of living standards and education. However, because she experiences arthritis, traveling was difficult and painful. Paisano decided she could work more effectively if she took a job that didn't require traveling. In 1976, she was hired by the United States Census Bureau to work on issues regarding Americans and Alaskan Natives, becoming the first American Indian to become a full time employee of the bureau.
As a result of visiting tribal areas and of examining the data from both a questionnaire she developed and the 1980 census, Paisano discovered that American Indians in some locations were undercounted. Because the allocation of important federal funds to tribal units is based on census figures, Paisano used modern statistical techniques to improve the accuracy of the census. By encouraging education in relevant mathematics-related fields such as computer programming, demography, and statistics, and by coordinating a public information campaign, she and her colleagues alerted American Indian communities to the importance of the census.
Did Paisano's efforts prove effective? There is reason to believe they did, because the 1990 census revealed a 38 percent increase in the number of United States residents counted as American Indians.
As excerpted from Agnesi to Zeno, Key Curriculum Press, P.O. Box 2304, Berkeley, CA 94702, 1-800-995-MATH
Caroline Herschel: Voices from the
Well
It is only in recent years that women's achievements in mathematics and science have been given adequate acknowledgment. As you may have already discovered, the names that most frequently appear in the history of mathematics are those of men. Many women who have gained recognition in the quantitative fields did so by overcoming societal prejudices and the tremendous handicap of not being allowed to participate in university mathematics and science programs.
In 1972, dramatist Terre Ouwehand wrote Voices from the Well , a play showcasing extraordinary women from history, myth, literature, and art. Presented in Greek chorus style, the historical figures portrayed deliver monologues from their own time periods. One of the featured women is Caroline Herschel (1750-1848), who along with her brother William Herschel founded modern astronomy. Although Caroline was an equal partner in their may accomplishments - such as discovering a number of comets and nebulae - William received the lion's share of the credit, including being appointed England's Royal Astronomer for the discovery of the planet Uranus.
In Voices from the Well, Ouwehand reflects Caroline Herschel's frustration.
(responding to someone off-stage) Yes, William, I have
everything ready. Yes, both telescopes are set precisely at the
angle and degree that we determined over dinner...as always.
Yes, dear brother, it s now past time - Sirius is already at
sixty degrees...
(to self; writing in notebook) Note to self; tomorrow; have
William's timepiece sent out for repair.
(off-stage) Yes, the extra chair is here next to your station with log book already upon it...(toeless/audience) so that I can at your bidding-at the drop of a sidearal second-leap up, leave my own observations...as always. (writing in her notebook) Note to self: tomorrow: have extra chair sent out for re-covering: tell upholsterer no hurry.
(off-stage) No, William, I do not know where your new fifty magnitude lens is-it was certainly in its case last night, for so I replaced it myself after you had retired...(to self/audience) after I had cleaned it and reground it and cleaned it again and polished it for so I do with all your lens, and all your glasses, all your mirrors, all your reflectors, your refractors, and detectors...
That is , of course, after I have copied out, in longhand, your evening's observations, verified them with minute mathematical calculations, and entered everything neatly and precisely in your voluminous journal that will surely be published, surely be hailed as the definitive text of modern astronomy-
Eventually Caroline Herschel received recognition for her many contributions. In 1835, she and Mary Somerville became the first women to be named as honorary members of the Royal Astronomical Society.
As excerpted from Agnesi to Zeno, Key Curriculum Press, P.O. Box 2304, Berkeley, CA 94702, 1-800-995-MATH
German-born Emmy Noether (1882-1935) was
the daughter of Max Noether, a mathematics professor at the University of
Erlangen who loved his subject and transferred this love to his daughter.
Her parents' support of her and her own determination were such that Noether
overcame the prejudice prevalent at that time against women seeking a higher
education. This prejudice was reflected in a statement issued in 1898 by the
Academic Senate at Erlangen, asserting that the admission of women students
would "overthrow all academic order." She, along with only one other woman
in a sizable student body, began her studies at Erlangen auditing mathematics
classes - the university did not allow women to officially register. In 1904,
the school changed this policy, and she was able to continue her studies as
a regular student, receiving her Ph.D. in mathematics in 1907.
Noether's mathematical strength was her ability to operate abstractly with difficult concepts. Instrumental in developing the axiomatic method as a powerful tool in mathematical research, she is primarily known for her significant contributions to the development of modern algebraic ideas. For example, in suggesting that algebra be linked with topology, she influenced the creation of a whole new field of mathematical study. (Topology is the study of properties of geometric forms that do not change under transformations such as bonding or stretching.) The importance of this and her other contributions inspired mathematician Hermann Weyl (1885-1955) to remark at her memorial: "She originated above all a new and epoch-making style of thinking in algebra." Noether was also a highly successful and popular teacher at both Erklangen and the University of Gottingen, despite the fact that she continually encountered opposition from many male faculty members who felt that women should not be lecturers in higher education. She was genuinely concerned for her students, and her almost exclusively male students at Gottingen were known as "the Noether boys."
In 1933 Adolf Hilter came to power in Germany, and Noether and other Jewish intellectuals were prohibited from participating in all academic activities. She emigrated to the United States and secured teaching positions at Bryn Mawr College and at the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton. Although she spent less than two years in the United States, she found great respect and friendship among her peers and her students. In 1935, she died unexpectedly as the result of an operation to remove a tumor, and her death shocked and saddened her many friends around the world. At the Moscow Mathematical Society, her friend Pavel Sergevich Aleksandrov (1896-1982) remembered her with this tribute: "Emmy Noether was the greatest of women mathematicians, a area scientist, an amazing teacher, and an unforgettable person."
Related Reading:
Ail, Margaret, Hypatia Heritage, Boston Beacon Press, 1986.
Brewer, James and Martha Smith. Emmy Noether: A Tribute to Her Life and Work. New York: Marcel Dekken, 1981.
Dick, Auguste. Emmy Noether, 1882-1935. Basel, Switzerland: Birkhauser Verlag, 1970.
As excerpted from Agnesi to Zeno, Key Curriculum Press, PO Box 2304, Berkeley, CA 94702, 1-800-995-MATH
In the News | WWW Links | Books | Bios | Associations | Speakers Bureau
Participants | Organizers | Sponsors | Directions | Resources | Home