Caren Diefenderfer

Caren Lea Diefenderfer (born March 18, 1952 in Allentown, Pennsylvania , † March 30, 2017 ) was an American mathematician and university professor who was known for her efforts to promote arithmetic.

Life and research

Diefenderfer graduated from Louis E. Dieruff High School in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and came in her junior year as a transfer student from Smith College to Dartmouth College , where she studied mathematics. She was among the first women to be admitted to Dartmouth College. In 1973 she completed her mathematics studies there with summa cum laude. In 1977 she received a faculty position at Hollins University , where she was promoted to full professor and taught for forty years. She did her doctorate in 1980 with David Sprecher at the University of California, Santa Barbara with the dissertation: Approximation of Functions of Several Variables concerned function approximation for multivariate functions . In 1985 she married David Robertson, with whom she had two sons. She received the Hollins University Distinguished Service Award in 2008. In 2011 she received both the Herta Freitag Faculty Award and the Roberta A. Stewart Service Award. In 2017 she was posthumously awarded the Algernon Sydney Sulliven Community Award (Citation).

Publications (selection)

2012: The Joy of Quantitative Reasoning. Editorial. Numeracy Volume 5, Issue 1.
2011: with Stuart Boersma, Shannon Dingman, Bernard Madison: Quantitative Reasoning in the Contemporary World, 3: Assessing Student Learning Numeracy Volume 4, Issue 2.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Diefenderfer, Caren
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Diefenderfer, Caren Lea
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American mathematician and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH	March 18, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH	Allentown, Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH	March 30, 2017