Evelyn Boyd Granville Explained

Evelyn Boyd Granville
Birth Date:1 May 1924
Birth Place:Washington, D.C., U.S.
Death Place:Silver Spring, Maryland, U.S.
Fields:Mathematics and Education
Alma Mater:Smith College, Yale University[1]
Thesis Title:On Laguerre Series in the Complex Domain
Thesis Year:1949
Thesis Url:https://search.library.yale.edu/catalog/4660962
Doctoral Advisor:Einar Hille
Awards:honorary doctorate: Smith College
honorary doctorate: Spelman College
Sam A. Lindsey Chair of the University of Texas at Tyler

Evelyn Boyd Granville (May 1, 1924 – June 27, 2023) was the second African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics from an American university;[2] she earned it in 1949 from Yale University. She graduated from Smith College in 1945.[3] [4] She performed pioneering work in the field of computing.[5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]

Education

Evelyn Boyd was born in Washington, D.C.; her father worked odd jobs due to the Great Depression but separated from her mother when Boyd was young. Boyd and her older sister were raised by her mother and aunt, who both worked at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. She was valedictorian at Dunbar High School, which at that time was a segregated but academically competitive school for black students in Washington.[3]

With financial support from her aunt and a small partial scholarship from Phi Delta Kappa, Boyd entered Smith College in the fall of 1941. She majored in mathematics and physics, but also took a keen interest in astronomy. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and to Sigma Xi and graduated summa cum laude in 1945. Encouraged by a graduate scholarship from the Smith Student Aid Society of Smith College, she applied to graduate programs in mathematics and was accepted by both Yale University and the University of Michigan; she chose Yale because of the financial aid they offered. There she studied functional analysis under the supervision of Einar Hille, finishing her doctorate in 1949. Her dissertation was "On Laguerre Series in the Complex Domain".[3]

Career

Following graduate school, Boyd went to New York University Institute for Mathematics and performed research and teaching there.[13] After, in 1950, she took a teaching position at Fisk University, a college for black students in Nashville, Tennessee (more prestigious postings being unavailable to black women). Two of her students there, Vivienne Malone-Mayes and Etta Zuber Falconer, went on to earn doctorates in mathematics of their own. But by 1952 she left academia and returned to Washington with a position at the Diamond Ordnance Fuze Laboratories. In January 1956, she moved to IBM as a computer programmer; when IBM received a NASA contract, she moved to Vanguard Computing Center in Washington, D.C.[14]

Boyd moved from Washington to New York City in 1957. In 1960, after marrying Reverend G. Mansfield Collins, Boyd moved to Los Angeles. There she worked for the U.S. Space Technology Laboratories, which became the North American Aviation Space and Information Systems Division in 1962.[14] She worked on various projects for the Apollo program, including celestial mechanics, trajectory computation, and "digital computer techniques".[15]

Forced to move because of a restructuring at IBM,[3] she took a position at California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA) in 1967 as a full professor of mathematics.[14] After retiring from CSULA in 1984 she taught at Texas College in Tyler, Texas for four years, and then in 1990 joined the faculty of the University of Texas at Tyler as the Sam A. Lindsey Professor of mathematics. There she developed elementary school math enrichment programs. Since 1967, Granville was a strong advocate for women's education in tech.[3]

Experience of discrimination

In 1951 there was a south-eastern sectional meeting of the Mathematical Association of America in Nashville.[16] [17] [18] The citation delivered at the 2007 MAA awards presentation, where Lee Lorch received a standing ovation, recorded that:

"Lee Lorch, the chair of the mathematics department at Fisk University, and three Black colleagues, Evelyn Boyd (now Granville), Walter Brown, and H. M. Holloway came to the meeting and were able to attend the scientific sessions. However, the organizer for the closing banquet refused to honor the reservations of these four mathematicians. (Letters in Science, August 10, 1951, pp. 161–162 spell out the details). Lorch and his colleagues wrote to the governing bodies of the AMS and MAA seeking bylaws against discrimination. Bylaws were not changed, but non-discriminatory policies were established and have been strictly observed since then."[19] [20] [21]

Personal life

Boyd married Reverend Gamaliele Mansifeld Collins in 1961. In 1967, Boyd and Collins divorced. She married realtor Edward V. Granville in 1970. The two moved to Tyler, Texas in 1983.[22] After Edward passed, she returned to Washington, D.C. in 2010 and settled into retirement, "where she regularly bristled when she heard anyone say that "women can't do math"."[23]

Granville died at her apartment in Silver Spring, Maryland on June 27, 2023, at the age of 99.[24]

The Evelyn Boyd Granville papers are located in Smith College's Special Collections, and were donated by Granville in 2015.[25]

Awards and honors

In 1989, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by Smith College, the first one given by an American institution to an African-American woman mathematician.[3] [26] [27]

Granville was appointed to the Sam A. Lindsey Chair of the University of Texas at Tyler (1990-1991).[28]

In 1998, Granville was honoured by the National Academy of Engineering.[29]

In 1999, the United States National Academy of Sciences inducted her into its Portrait Collection of African-Americans in Science.[30]

In 2000, she was awarded the Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal, the Yale Graduate School Alumni Association's highest honour.[31]

In 2001, she was cited in the Virginia state senate's Joint Resolution No. 377, Designating February 25 as "African-American Scientist and Inventor Day."[32]

In 2006 she was awarded an honorary degree by Spelman College.[33]

In 2016, technology firm New Relic's Mount Codemore initiative named her as one of "four giants of women's contributions to science and technology".[34]

In 2019, she was recognized by Mathematically Gifted & Black as a Black History Month Honoree.[35]

See also

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. . 620 . 7974. 487 . 17 August 2023 . Obituary. 11 August 2023 Evelyn Boyd Granville, space-flight trailblazer (1924—2023) Mathematician and programmer who transcended barriers of race and gender / (Title in print issue:) Obituary. Evelyn Boyd Granville (1924–2023) . Mar . Hicks . 10.1038/d41586-023-02556-y . Springer Nature . 37567962 . 260812574 . Granville shared her expertise and her love of maths far and wide. She did so while being aware that many of her white, and male, contemporaries found it difficult to accept that a Black woman could be so successful and have such authority in the field. "I always smile when I hear that women cannot excel in mathematics," she once remarked.. free .
  2. Web site: 10 Famous Women in Tech History. 2016-03-14. Dice Insights. 2017-02-01.
  3. Web site: Evelyn Boyd Granville . Black Women in Mathematics . Scott W. . Williams . Mathematics Department, State University of New York at Buffalo . 2014-06-21. .
  4. Book: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G2-3408504323.html . Evelyn Boyd Granville . Science and Its Times: Understanding the Social Significance of Scientific Discovery . 2001 . Neil . Schlager . Josh . Lauer . Gale Group . 9780787639334 . registration .
  5. Book: Masters of Mathematics: The Problems They Solved, Why These Are Important, and What You Should Know about Them. Robert A.. Nowlan. 453. Granville [contributed] her expertise in the field of computer science during its pioneer years.. 2017. Springer. 9789463008938.
  6. Book: Inventors and Inventions, Volume 2. 343. During the 1960s, perhaps the greatest achievement in computing was guiding Apollo space rockets to the moon. Some of the important Apollo programs were written by Elizabeth Boyd Granville (1924-).. Marshall Cavendish. 2008. 9780761477648.
  7. Web site: Smith E-News 2006. Smith College. [Granville has] long been a pioneer in applied mathematics and computer technology, having joined the staff of IBM in 1956 to work on projects for NASA.. 2006. 2017-10-29.
  8. Book: Kessler, James H.. [At] the Space Technology Laboratories in Los Angeles, [Granville] continued her pioneering work on orbit computations for manned space vehicles.. Distinguished African American Scientists of the 20th Century. 130. Greenwood Publishing Group. 1996. 9780897749558.
  9. Annabel. Beckenham. January 2001. A Woman's Place in Cyberspace: critical analysis of discourse, purpose and practice with regard to women and new communication technologies.. MA. University of Canberra. [The Ada Project,] originally developed at Yale University, is designed to serve as a clearing house for information and resources related to women and computing. Given its aim and its authority, it is telling that the site lists precisely twelve women as 'pioneering women of computing'. They are, in order of appearance; Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace (1815-1852), Edith Clarke (1883-1959), Rosa Peter (1905-1977), Grace Murray Hopper (1906-1992), Alexandra Illmer Forsythe (1918-1980), Evelyn Boyd Granville, Margaret R. Fox, Erna Schneider Hoover, Kay McNulty Mauchly Antonelli, Alice Burks, Adele Goldstine, and Joan Margaret Winters.. 2017-10-29. 2017-11-07. https://web.archive.org/web/20171107012202/http://www.canberra.edu.au/researchrepository/file/fa28a05f-8681-d584-64a2-8b4636bc95ba/1/full_text.pdf. dead.
  10. Web site: At IBM, Dr. Granville played an exciting and fundamental role in the dawn of the computer age, especially as it was being applied to celestial mechanics. For example, she was part of the team of scientists responsible for writing the computer programs that tracked the paths of vehicles in space on NASA's Project Vanguard and Project Mercury.. Newsletter of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Michigan Summer 2001. 2001. University of Michigan.
  11. Web site: Another groundbreaker is Dr. Evelyn Boyd Granville, a mathematician who worked on orbit computations and computer procedures for three space-related projects — Project Vanguard (originally managed by the Naval Research Laboratory and later transferred to NASA); Project Mercury (the nation's first effort to put a man in space); and the program that eventually put a man on the moon, Project Apollo. . Unsung: Dr. Evelyn Boyd Granville . Undark.org . Sibrina. Collins. 2016-06-13.
  12. Another important figure of that time was Evelyn Granville, a pioneer in information technology who began her career in academia, went on to programming challenges at IBM and ultimately worked on the NASA space programme before returning to teach others.. Ivanović. Mirjana. Putnik. Zoran. Šišarica. Anja. Budimac. Zoran. Innovation in Teaching and Learning in Information and Computer Sciences. 9. 1. 32–41. 2010. A Note on Performance and Satisfaction of Female Students Studying Computer Science. 10.11120/ital.2010.09010032. free.
  13. Web site: My Life as a Mathematician. Boyd Granville. Evelyn. Fall 1989. Biographies of Women Mathematicians.
  14. Web site: Collins . Sibrina Nichelle . Unsung: Dr. Evelyn Boyd Granville . UnDark . 7 November 2018. February 7, 2017.
  15. Book: Ray Spangenburg. Diane Moser. Douglas Long. African Americans in Science, Math, and Invention. 1 January 2003. Infobase Publishing. 978-1-4381-0774-5. 97–.
  16. Web site: The Painful Path Toward Inclusivity . Lee . Lorch . Lee Lorch . 1994 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20080906170043/http://www.wam.umd.edu/~rlj/Lorch.html . September 6, 2008 .
  17. Richard. Hamilton. MAA Prizes and Awards at the 2007 Joint Mathematics Meetings. MAA Online. 2007. 2022-04-20. 2007-02-09. https://web.archive.org/web/20070209014336/http://www.maa.org/news/AwardsJMM07-Citations.html. dead. (includes citation for Lee Lorch)
  18. Allyn. Jackson. Notices of the American Mathematical Society. MAA Prizes Presented in New Orleans. 54. 2007. 641–642.
  19. Richard. Hamilton. MAA Prizes and Awards at the 2007 Joint Mathematics Meetings. MAA Online. 2007. 2022-04-20. 2007-02-09. https://web.archive.org/web/20070209014336/http://www.maa.org/news/AwardsJMM07-Citations.html. dead. (includes citation for Lee Lorch)
  20. http://www.maa.org/news/AwardsJMM07-Citations.html MAA citation
  21. 10.4169/college.math.j.42.2.163. Media Highlights. The College Mathematics Journal. 42. 2. March 2011. 163–172. 10.4169/college.math.j.42.2.163. 218549669.
  22. Web site: Granville, Evelyn Boyd (1924-) The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed. blackpast.org. en. 2018-10-16. 2007-03-03.
  23. Web site: Evelyn Granville Obituary (2023) - Washington, DC - The Washington Post . 2023-07-14 . Legacy.com.
  24. Web site: Josh . Dinner . 2023-07-24 . Pioneering NASA 'Hidden Figure' Evelyn Boyd Granville dies at age 99 . Space.com . en.
  25. Web site: Collection: Evelyn Boyd Granville papers Smith College Finding Aids . 2023-07-14 . findingaids.smith.edu.
  26. http://www.math.smith.edu/evelyn.php Dr. Evelyn Boyd Granville '45
  27. http://www.smith.edu/about_honorary.php Smith History: Honorary Degrees
  28. Book: Ray Spangenburg. Diane Moser. Douglas Long. African Americans in Science, Math, and Invention. 1 January 2003. Infobase Publishing. 978-1-4381-0774-5. 98–.
  29. Web site: Academy Honors Three During African American History Month. NAE Website.
  30. News: Pioneer in science: Evelyn Granville . New Pittsburgh Courier . March 27, 1999 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160306234831/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-480979971.html. dead. March 6, 2016. .
  31. Web site: Yale Bulletin and Calendar - News. Archives.news.yale.edu. 29 October 2017.
  32. Web site: 2001 SESSION SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 377 : Designating February 25 as "African-American Scientist and Inventor Day.". Lis.virginia.gov. 29 October 2017.
  33. Web site: Spelman College: Honorary Degree Recipients, 1977–Present. Spelman.edu. 29 October 2017.
  34. Web site: 'Mount Codemore' Honors Four Women Technology Titans. Robyn. Jordan. blog.newrelic.com. 2016-04-26. 2017-10-29. 2018-03-30. https://web.archive.org/web/20180330132015/https://blog.newrelic.com/2016/04/26/mount-codemore-women-in-technology/. dead.
  35. Web site: Evelyn Boyd Granville. Mathematically Gifted & Black.

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