Frances Harshbarger

Frances Harshbarger (16 August 1902, Quimby, Iowa – 11 February 1987, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio) was an American mathematician.[1]

Frances Harshbarger
Upper: M. Stark, Lower, left to right: R. Politzer, F. Harshbarger, ICM 1932
Born(1902-08-16)August 16, 1902
Quimby, Iowa, US
DiedFebruary 11, 1987(1987-02-11) (aged 84)
Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, US
Resting placeWoodbine, Iowa[1]
Alma materGrinnell College
University of Illinois
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsKent State University
ThesisThe Geometric Configuration Defined by a Special Algebraic Relation of Genus Four (1930)
Doctoral advisorArthur Byron Coble

Education

She obtained her B.A. with honors in 1923 at Grinnell College,[2][3] and went to West Virginia University to serve as a half-time teacher and simultaneously work on her mathematics graduation; in 1925 she finished her M.A. After that she became head of the mathematics department of Potomac State College in Keyser, West Virginia. In 1927 to 1929, she was an assistant, in 1929 to 1930 a fellow, at the University of Illinois. In 1930, she obtained her Ph.D. in mathematics with a thesis in algebraic geometry,[4][5] advised by A. B. Coble.[6] She was one of the first American women who obtained a mathematics Ph.D. degree.[1]

Career

Thereafter, she worked as a professor in the American College for Girls, the university section of Robert College, in Istanbul, Turkey.[1] She attended the 1932 International Congress of Mathematicians in Zürich as an official delegate.[7] In 1934, she returned to the United States to teach at the high school associated with the University of Chicago. For the rest of her career, she served at Kent State University in Ohio, as an appointed instructor since 1935, an assistant professor since 1936, an associate professor since 1942, and a professor since 1946, until she retired in 1972, as emeritus professor.[1]

References
  1. Green, Judy; LaDuke, Jeanne (2009). Pioneering Women in American Mathematics — The Pre-1940 PhD's. History of Mathematics. Vol. 34 (1st ed.). American Mathematical Society, The London Mathematical Society. ISBN 978-0-8218-4376-5. Biography on pp. 244 of the Supplementary Material at AMS
  2. Grinnell graduates list Archived 2018-03-08 at the Wayback Machine, class of 1923
  3. Green, Judy; LaDuke, Jeanne (2009). History of Mathematics, Vol 34: Pioneering Women in American Mathematics: The Pre-1940 PhD's. United States of America: American Mathematical Society, London Mathematical Society. p. 193. ISBN 978-0-8218-4376-5. Retrieved 24 June 2021.
  4. Frances Harshbarger (1930). The Geometric Configuration Defined by a Special Algebraic Relation of Genus Four (Ph.D. thesis). University of Illinois.
  5. Frances Harshbarger (Apr 1931). "The Geometric Configuration Defined by a Special Algebraic Relation of Genus Four". Transactions of the American Mathematical Society. 33 (2): 557–578. doi:10.2307/1989423. JSTOR 1989423.
  6. Frances Harshbarger at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  7. Vol.1 Archived 2017-11-10 at the Wayback Machine of the Congress Proceedings, p. 10, 25 (= p. 18, 33 in the Pdf file)
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