8th Annual Women in Mathematics Day

09-26-2014

The Department of Mathematics celebrated the achievements and contributions of women mathematicians on September 30, 2014.

Dr. Margaret Cheney, the Albert C. Yates Endowment Professor of Mathematics at Colorado State University, presented the Jean E. Rubin Memorial Lecture* entitled "Introduction to Synthetic-Aperture Radar Imaging."

Dr. Cheney also holds an appointment in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Colorado State University. After receiving her Ph.D. in 1982 from Indiana University, she was a postdoc at Stanford University (1982-84), an assistant professor at Duke University (1984-88), and a professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1988-2012) before moving to Colorado State in 2012.

Professor Cheney has served on the SIAM Board of Trustees and various other SIAM committees, and currently serves on the editorial boards of two journals. She has received various awards, including most recently an Honorary Doctor of Science from Oberlin College in 2011. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and a Fellow of SIAM.
Most of her work has been on the inverse problems that arise in acoustics and electromagnetic theory; since 2001, she has been working on radar imaging.

Women in Mathematics Day activities provide special opportunities for women faculty and graduate students to share experiences and discuss issues of access and climate. Support this year was provided by the Purdue Department of Mathematics and a grant from the Science Women for Purdue Giving Circle. For additional information, contact Professor Donatella Danielli.

*Jean E. Rubin was Professor of Mathematics at Purdue University from 1967 until her death in 2002. She received a B.S. from Queen's College in New York City in 1948, an M.A. from Columbia in 1949, and a Ph.D. from Stanford in 1955. She taught at the University of Oregon and Michigan State University before coming to Purdue. Professor Rubin was the author of more than 40 papers and five books in set theory and questions related to the axiom of choice.