Marguerite Hedberg

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Marguerite Hedberg (born August 27, 1907 in Kirksville (Missouri) , † August 27, 2002 in Providence , Rhode Island ) was an American mathematician and university professor .

Life and research

Hedberg was born in 1907 as Marguerite Lenore Zeigel. She was the second of four children of Elizabeth (Neef) (1879-1975) and William Henry Zeigel (1875-1947), the future dean and director of the Department of Education at Delta State Teachers College (now Delta State University ) in Cleveland , Mississippi. She received her elementary and secondary education in Kirksville and then attended Delta State Teachers College from 1925 to her bachelor's degree in education in 1928. She then studied at the University of Missouri and received her master's degree in 1929 . She was a Gregory Fellow from 1929 to 1931 and was an assistant professor of mathematics at Delta State Teachers College from 1931 to 1932. She did her doctorate in 1932 with Louis Ingold at the University of Missouri with the dissertation: Some Invariant Properties of a Two-Dimensional Surface in Hyperspace. She was then assistant professor at a women's school, Lander College (now the co-educational Lander University ) in Greenwood, South Carolina, and was promoted to professor after a year.

In 1936 she married the mathematician Ernest Albert Hedberg (1903–1961).

From 1938 to 1940 she taught at Baylor University in Waco , Texas . In 1942 she returned as a professor and acting head of department at the Delta State Teachers College. From 1943 to 1944 she was an assistant professor at the University of Georgia and in 1944 she worked for the US Bureau of Scientific Research and Development.

After World War II, when members of the math faculty were badly needed to teach returning soldiers, Wyman Loren Williams (1902–1986) brought her and her husband to the University of South Carolina in 1946 . She was an associate professor from 1946 to 1949 and retired in 1976 as an emeritus associate professor.

She died on her 95th birthday in Columbia, South Carolina. After her death, her $ 1,000,000 estate was donated to founding the Wyman Loren Williams and Ernest Albert and Marguerite Zeigel Hedberg Chair of Mathematics at the University of South Carolina.

Memberships

Publications (selection)

  • 1928: Zeigel, M .: A problem in projective geometry. Math. News Lett. 3 (2).
  • 1930: Zeigel, M .: Principal directions for two dimensional surfaces in hyperspace. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 36.

literature

  • "Hedberg Exemplifies Tradition of Excellence." Delta State Alumni News, Spring 2002.
  • “Dr. Marguerite Hedberg. " (Obituary) Columbia (SC) State, Aug 28, 2002.
  • "USC Receives $ 1 Million to Establish Mathematics Chair." USC Times News & Headlines, Apr 2003.
  • 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 Hedberg, Marguerite
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Zeigel, Marguerite Lenore (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American mathematician and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH August 27, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Kirksville, Missouri
DATE OF DEATH August 27, 2002
Place of death Providence , Rhode Island