Marjorie Lee Browne

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Marjorie Lee Browne (born September 9, 1914 in Memphis (Tennessee) , † October 19, 1979 in Durham (North Carolina) ) was an American mathematician and university professor. She was one of the first two African American women to earn a PhD in mathematics.

Life and research

Lee Browne attended LeMoyne High School and during that time won the women's singles tennis championship in Memphis City. She studied mathematics at Howard University and received her bachelor's degree with honors in 1939 . She then briefly taught at high school and at Gilbert Academy in New Orleans . From 1942 to 1945 she was a lecturer at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas . She then applied to the University of Michigan mathematics program , which at the time, unlike other educational institutions, was open to African American students. She received a teaching scholarship and did her doctorate in 1950 with George Yuri Rainich with the dissertation: Studies of One Parameter Subgroups of Certain Topological and Matrix Groups. From 1949 until her retirement in 1979 she taught at the Faculty of Mathematics at North Carolina Central University , then called North Carolina College. For 25 years she was the only person in the department with a doctorate degree, and from 1951 to 1970 she was the chair of the Faculty of Mathematics. From 1952 to 1953 she received a Ford Foundation scholarship, which gave her the opportunity to travel through Western Europe. She was also a faculty fellow from the National Science Foundation and studied computer science at the University of California , Los Angeles . She received another scholarship from 1965 to 1966 while studying differential topology at Columbia University in New York . In 1960, she was the lead author of a successful proposal that won an IBM scholarship that enabled North Carolina Central University to obtain its first computer.

Memberships

Publications (selection)

  • 1955: "A note on the classical groups", Amer. Math. Monthly 62
  • 1959: Sets, Logic, and Mathematical Thought
  • 1959: Introduction to Linear Algebra
  • 1969: Elementary Matrix Algebra
  • 1974: Algebraic Structures

Awards (selection)

  • Sigma Xi
  • American Mathematical Society
  • Ford Foundation fellowship
  • National Science Foundation Faculty Fellow
  • Fellowship at Columbia University
  • 1974: WW Rankin Memorial Award, North Carolina Council of Teachers of Mathematics
  • Dr. Marjorie Lee Browne Colloquium of the Department of Mathematics, University of Michigan since 1999
  • Marjorie Lee Browne Scholarship

literature

  • Patricia Clark Kenschaft: "Black Men and Women in Mathematical Research," Journal of Black Studies, vol. 18, 1987.
  • Scott W. Williams: "Black Women in the Mathematical Sciences," (SUNY Buffalo Math Dept.)
  • "MiSciNet's Ancestors of Science, Marjorie Lee Browne," Science, September 10, 2004.
  • Charlene Morrow and Teri Perl: Notable Women in Mathematics, a Biographical Dictionary, Greenwood Press, 1998.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Browne, Marjorie Lee
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American mathematician and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH September 9, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Memphis (Tennessee)
DATE OF DEATH 19th October 1979
Place of death Durham, North Carolina