Mayme Irwin Logsdon was the first woman to receive tenure in the University of Chicago’s mathematics department. Known for her research in algebraic geometry and mathematics education, she received a bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD in mathematics from UChicago in 1913, 1915, and 1921, respectively.

 

Logsdon had taught high school for eleven years before she was widowed and returned to school to earn her degrees; her thesis was titled “Equivalence and Reduction of Pairs of Hermitian Forms.” She took on an instructor role at UChicago in 1921, served as a dean of the College from 1922 to 1925, and rose to the rank of associate professor in 1930. (The next woman to do so would be Karen Uhlenbeck, 61 years later.)

 

Logsdon advised and helped many women who were graduate students. She also wrote two undergraduate mathematics books, Elementary Mathematical Analysis and A Mathematician Explains. After 16 years without being promoted to full professor, she left UChicago in 1946 and became a professor at the University of Miami. She remained in this role until her retirement in 1961.

 

She was an International Education Board Fellow in Rome from 1924 to 1925, as well as a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Mathematical Society, and the Mathematical Association of America. She served as the director of the American Association of University Women from 1929-1935.

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Read more:

• Biographies of Women Mathematicians: Mayme I. Logsdon by Larry Riddle

• Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science