Mary W. Gray

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Mary Gray 2017 at the Women in Statistics and Data Science Conference

Mary W. Gray (born April 8, 1938 in Nebraska ) is an American mathematician and university professor . She currently serves on the Advisory Board of POMED (Project on Democracy in the Middle East) and Chair of the Board of Directors of AMIDEAST (America-Mideast Educational and Training Services, Inc.). She is founding president of the Association for Women in Mathematics , is a member of the District of Columbia Bar Association and the US Supreme Court bars.

life and work

Gray was born Mary Lee Wheat to schoolteachers Lillie Alves and Neil Claude Wheat and attended high school in Hastings, Nebraska. After graduation, she studied mathematics and physics at Hastings College until 1959. Then she studied for a year on a Fulbright scholarship in Frankfurt at the Goethe Institute . After returning to the United States, she studied at the University of Kansas and received a Masters degree in 1962 . In 1964 she did her doctorate there with William Raymond Scott with the dissertation: Radical Subcategories. Her studies were funded in part by National Science Foundation grants and in part by serving as an Assistant Instructor at the University of Kansas . In addition, she worked as a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology every summer . After graduating, she married the mathematician Alfred Gray , whom she had met at the University of Kansas and the University of California was appointed to Berkeley, while a course in the summer Berkeley taught and then to the California State University in Hayward appointed has been. In 1968 he was appointed to the University of Maryland and she was appointed professor at the American University in Washington . She did a lot to support the role of women mathematicians. In 1972 she published the article Women in Mathematics in the American Mathematical Monthly. At that time she was president of the Association for Women in Mathematics, an organization she helped found and which she headed as president from 1971 to 1973. One of their first acts was to put pressure on the American Mathematical Society , which it believed did not have nearly enough women on its committees or speakers at its conferences. She tackled the problem head on and, after carefully reading the statutes of the American Mathematical Society, attempted to attend one of the Society's council meetings. When she was told she had to go, she replied that she could not find any rules in the statutes restricting participation in council meetings. Then she was told it was a "gentlemen's agreement". Of course she replied, "Well, obviously I'm not a gentleman." She was later elected to the council and became second vice-president in 1976 (the first being Charlotte Angas Scott ).

In addition, she studied in the 1970s Law and received in 1979 a law degree with honors from the American University Washington College of Law . She is the author of books and articles in the fields of math, math teaching, computer science , applied statistics , economic justice, right to discrimination, and academic freedom. She has supervised 34 PhD students at American University. In 1994 she received the Mentor Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Technology, and Mathematics from President George W. Bush and received honorary degrees from the University of Nebraska , Mount Holyoke College, and Hastings College . She is a member of the American Mathematical Society, the American Statistical Association, the American Association for Advancement of Science, and the Association for Women in Science. The Association for Women in Mathematics presents the Mary and Alfie Gray Award for Social Justice to recognize applications of the mathematical sciences to advance social justice. She served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Amnesty International USA, International Treasurer of Amnesty International and Chairman of the International Development Committee. She has also served on boards and committees of organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Middle East Education Foundation, and has lectured in the United States, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.

Awards (selection)

  • 1959: Fulbright Fellowship
  • 1959–1963: NDEA Fellowship
  • 1963–1964: NSF Fellowship
  • 1979: Georgina Smith Award, American Association of University Professors
  • 1994: Mentor Award for Lifetime Achievement, American Association for the Advancement of Science
  • 2001: Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Engineering and Mathematics Mentoring
  • 2012: Elizabeth L. Scott Award, Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies
  • 2013: Fellow of the American Mathematics Society
  • 2017: Fellow of the Association for Women in Mathematics
  • 2017: Karl E. Peace Award for Outstanding Statistical Contributions for the Betterment of Society

Publications (selection)

  • 1970: Radical approach to algebra. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co. OCLC 80899.
  • 1972: Calculus with finite mathematics for social sciences. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co. ISBN 9780201025736 .
  • 1967: Radical Subcategories, Pacific Journal of Mathematics, Vol. 23, No. 1, 79-89.
  • 1972: "Women in mathematics," American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 79, 475-479.

literature

  • L. Blum: A Brief History of the Association for Women in Mathematics: The Presidents' Perspectives, Amer. Math. Soc. Notices, 38 (7), 1991, 738-774.
  • M. Gray, Association for Women in Mathematics Newsletter 1 (2), 1971.
  • JE Taylor, SM Wiegand: AWM in the 1990s: A Recent History of the Association for Women in Mathematics, Amer. Math. Soc. Notices 46 (1), 1999, 27-38.
  • C. Morrow and T. Perl: Notable Women in Mathematics, Westport, CT, 1998, 71-76.
  • PC Kenschaft: Change is Possible: Stories of Women and Minorities in Mathematics, American Mathematical Society, Providence RI, 2005, 135–140.
  • CE Moreland: Mary Gray-Advocate for Women in Mathematics, in MP Cooney (ed.), Celebrating Women in Mathematics and Science, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1996.
  • MBRuskai: Gray Receives AAAS Mentor Award, Notices Amer. Math. Soc. 42 (4), 1995, 466.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Gray, Mary W.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wheat Gray, Mary Lee
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American mathematician and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH April 8, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Nebraska