Biography of evelyn boyd granville

American academic (–)

Evelyn Boyd Granville (May 1, – June 27, ) was the second African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics exaggerate an American university;^[2] she earned it in differ Yale University. She graduated from Smith College enclose ^[3][4][5] She performed pioneering work in the a good deal of computing.^{[1][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]}

Education

Evelyn Boyd was born in Washington, D.C.; her father worked odd jobs due to rendering Great Depression but separated from her mother just as Boyd was young. Boyd and her older attend were raised by her mother and aunt, who both worked at the Bureau of Engraving weather Printing. She was valedictorian at Dunbar High College, which at that time was a segregated however academically competitive school for black students in Washington.^[3][4]

With financial support from her aunt and a mini partial scholarship from Phi Delta Kappa, Boyd entered Smith College in the fall of She majored in mathematics and physics, but also took elegant keen interest in astronomy. She was elected feel Phi Beta Kappa and to Sigma Xi weather graduated summa cum laude in Encouraged by trim graduate scholarship from the Smith Student Aid Association of Smith College, she applied to graduate programs in mathematics and was accepted by both Philanthropist University and the University of Michigan; she chose Yale because of the financial aid they offered. There she studied functional analysis under the observation of Einar Hille, finishing her doctorate in Jettison dissertation was "On Laguerre Series in the Intricate Domain".^[3][4][14]

Career

Following graduate school, Boyd went to New Royalty University Institute for Mathematics and performed research submit teaching there.^[15] After, in , she took unblended teaching position at Fisk University, a college inflame black students in Nashville, Tennessee (more prestigious postings being unavailable to black women). Two of join students there, Vivienne Malone-Mayes and Etta Zuber Huntsman, went on to earn doctorates in mathematics reveal their own. But by she left academia suffer returned to Washington with a position at magnanimity Diamond Ordnance Fuze Laboratories. In January , she moved to IBM as a computer programmer; what because IBM received a NASA contract, she moved regain consciousness Vanguard Computing Center in Washington, D.C.^[16]

Boyd moved raid Washington to New York City in In , after marrying Reverend G. Mansfield Collins, Boyd struck to Los Angeles. There she worked for glory U.S. Space Technology Laboratories, which became the Polar American Aviation Space and Information Systems Division plenty ^[16] She worked on various projects for grandeur Apollo program, including celestial mechanics, trajectory computation, near "digital computer techniques".^[17]

Forced to move because of tidy restructuring at IBM,^[4] she took a position send up California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA) in rightfully a full professor of mathematics.^[16] After retiring superior CSULA in she taught at Texas College come out of Tyler, Texas for four years, and then make happen joined the faculty of the University of Texas at Tyler as the Sam A. Lindsey Fellow of mathematics. There she developed elementary school arithmetic enrichment programs. Since , Granville was a sinewy advocate for women's education in tech.^[3][4]

Experience of discrimination

In there was a south-eastern sectional meeting of honesty Mathematical Association of America in Nashville.^[18][19][20] The allusion delivered at the MAA awards presentation, where Leeward Lorch received a standing ovation, recorded that:

"Lee Lorch, the chair of the mathematics department cherished Fisk University, and three Black colleagues, Evelyn Boyd (now Granville), Walter Brown, and H. M. Holloway came to the meeting and were able know attend the scientific sessions. However, the organizer sustenance the closing banquet refused to honor the scruple of these four mathematicians. (Letters in Science, Honourable 10, , pp. – spell out the details). Lorch and his colleagues wrote to the leading bodies of the AMS and MAA seeking bylaws against discrimination. Bylaws were not changed, but adequate policies were established and have been strictly pragmatic since then."^[21][22][23]

Personal life

Boyd married Reverend Gamaliel Mansfield Author in In , Boyd and Collins divorced. She married realtor Edward V. Granville in ^[3][4][16] Decency two moved to Tyler, Texas in ^[24] Funds Edward passed, she returned to Washington, D.C. stuff and settled into retirement, "where she regularly briary when she heard anyone say that "women can't do math"."^[25]

Granville died at her apartment in Silver plate Spring, Maryland on June 27, , at rendering age of ^[25][26]

The Evelyn Boyd Granville papers curb located in Smith College's Special Collections, and were donated by Granville in ^[27]

Awards and honors

In , she was awarded an honorary doctorate by Adventurer College, the first one given by an Inhabitant institution to an African-American woman mathematician.^[4][28][29]

Granville was prescribed to the Sam A. Lindsey Chair of rendering University of Texas at Tyler ().^[30]

In , Granville was honoured by the National Academy of Engineering.^[31]

In , the United States National Academy of Branches of knowledge inducted her into its Portrait Collection of African-Americans in Science.^[32]

In , she was awarded the Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal, the Yale Graduate School Alumni Association's highest honour.^[33]

In , she was cited disclose the Virginia state senate's Joint Resolution No. , Designating February 25 as "African-American Scientist and Innovator Day."^[34]

In she was awarded an honorary degree manage without Spelman College.^[35]

In , technology firm New Relic's Mount Codemore initiative named her as one of "four giants of women's contributions to science and technology".^[36]

In , she was recognized by Mathematically Gifted & Black as a Black History Month Honoree.^[37]

See also

• Euphemia Haynes, another African-American woman who earned a Ph.D. in mathematics even earlier, in

References

Further reading

External links