Josephine Roe

Josephine Robinson Roe (born May 5, 1858 in Meredith (New Hampshire) , † April 29, 1946 in Newton (Massachusetts) ) was an American mathematician and university professor. She was the first woman to receive her PhD in mathematics from Syracuse University in 1910 .

life and work

Roe graduated from the New Hampton Literary Institution in 1880 and taught in New Hampshire schools for more than a decade before entering college. Her early teaching assignments included teaching in New Hampshire county public schools for about fifteen months, school principal at Laconia, New Hampshire high school, and teaching at the New Hampton Literary Institution from 1880 to 1882 . She began studying mathematics at Oberlin College in 1890 and received a bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1894 . She then taught Latin at the Kimball Union Academy in Meriden, New Hampshire. In 1897 she was appointed to Berea College in Kentucky , where she taught Latin, English literature, and mathematics. There she was director of the women's department and from 1897 to 1901 acting professor of mathematics, from 1901 to 1907 dean of women and from 1901 to 1911 professor of mathematics. During the summer months she studied at Dartmouth College from 1907 to 1911 and received a master's degree in mathematics in 1911. After her marriage in 1911 with the mathematics professor Edward Drake Roe , she left Berea College and studied mathematics at Syracus University. In 1918, at the age of 60, she received her doctorate there as the first doctoral student in mathematics with the dissertation: Interfunctional Expressibility Problems Symmetric Functions. She then taught as an assistant professor at Syracuse University, was a member of various mathematical organizations and also the American Astronomical Society, as she had supported her husband in research in his private observatory.

Memberships

Publications (selection)

1917: Interfunctional expressibility problems of symmetric functions. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 23
1917: Interfunctional expressibility problems of symmetric functions (Second paper). Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 24
1918: Interfunctional expressibility problems of symmetric functions (Third paper). Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 25th

literature

Judy Green, Jeanne LaDuke: Pioneering Women in American Mathematics: The Pre-1940 PhD's. 2009, ISBN 978-0-8218-4376-5 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Roe, Josephine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Robinson Roe, Josephine (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American mathematician and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH	May 5, 1858
PLACE OF BIRTH	Meredith, New Hampshire
DATE OF DEATH	April 29, 1946
Place of death	Newton (Massachusetts)