Gloria Ford Gilmer Explained

Gloria Gilmer
Birth Date:28 June 1928
Birth Place:Neww york
Death Place:Urban Air
Nationality:African American
Fields:Mathematics, Ethnomathematics, Education
Alma Mater:Morgan State University
University of Pennsylvania; Marquette University
Thesis Title:"Effects Of Small Discussion Groups On Self-Paced Instruction In a Developmental Algebra Course"
Thesis Year:1978
Known For:Ethnomathematics

Gloria C. Gilmer (Ford; June 28, 1928 – August 25, 2021) was an American mathematician and educator, notable for being the first African American woman to publish a non-PhD thesis.

Early life and education

Gilmer was born in Baltimore, Maryland on June 28, 1928. She studied for her Bachelor of Science degree at Morgan State University,[1] [2] where she was part of the class of 1949.[3] While there, she published two papers with her supervisor Luna Mishoe;[4] [5] [6] these were the first two research papers published by an African American woman, being published in 1956,[7] [8] under her maiden name of Gloria C. Ford. She was also a student of Clarence Stephens while there.[9] [3]

After receiving her MA in Mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania,[1] she went to work on ballistics research at the Aberdeen Proving Ground,[3] and later to teach at six HBCUs.[9] She studied for a PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but left after a year, later citing "a marriage, children, and the necessity to earn a living".[9] She subsequently gained a PhD from Marquette University,[2] in Education Administration.[9] The title of her dissertation is "Effects Of Small Discussion Groups On Self-Paced Instruction In a Developmental Algebra Course".[10]

Post-doctoral career

Much of Gilmer's work has been in ethnomathematics; she was described as a "leader in the field" by Scott W. Williams, a mathematics professor at SUNY Buffalo.[9]

An example of this research is when, based on fieldwork in New York and Baltimore, Gilmer and her assistants, 14-year-old Stephanie Desgrottes and teacher Mary Potter, observed and interviewed both hair stylists and customers in the two cities' salons, inquiring about tessellations in box braids (box-shaped tessellations resembling brick walls) and triangular braids (tessellations resembling equilateral triangles), two styles that restrict the movement of the hair when the head is tossed. While these hair stylists do not generally think of what they do as mathematical, Gilmer detailed the many mathematically based patterns in these and other types of braiding and how they are found in nature, such as the tessellating hexagons found in braids that resembles the flesh of pineapples and the honeycombs in beehives. As an educator, Gilmer used these results to create classroom activities for students to understand the mathematics of hair braiding.[11] [12] [13]

In the early 1980s, Gilmer was the first African American woman to be on the board of governors of the Mathematical Association of America.[2] Between 1981 and 1984, Gilmer was a research associate at the United States Department of Education, where she was part of the Office of Educational Research and Improvement.[1] In 1985 she co-founded and the executive board of International Study Group on Ethnomathematics (ISGEm),[14] of which she was the President from 1985 to 1996.[1] She was also the second person, and first woman, to give the National Association of Mathematicians' Cox-Talbot lecture, which was named in honour of the first and fourth African Americans to receive PhDs in mathematics.[15]

In 2008, Gilmer became the president of Math-Tech, a corporation that aims to take new research material and create more effective mathematics curricula, particularly with respect to women and minorities.[9]

In 2022, Gilmer became the first Black woman mathematician to have her papers archived in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress.[16]

Death

Gilmer died on August 25, 2021, at the age of 93, in the city of Milwaukee, in the state of Wisconsin.[17] [3] [18]

List of published works

Awards

The American Mathematical Society (AMS) has a mid-career research fellowship, the Claytor-Gilmer Fellowship, named after Gilmer and William Schieffelin Claytor.[19]

References

  1. Web site: Gloria Ford Gilmer. Agnes Scott College. June 1, 2014. Riddle. Larry. Biographies of Women Mathematicians.
  2. Book: Kenschaft, Patricia Clark. Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia. Gilmer, Gloria. Hine. Darlene Clark. Brown. Elsa Barkley. Terborg-Penn. Rosalyn. 1993. Carlson Publishing. Brooklyn, New York. 978-0-926019-61-4. 10 June 2020.
  3. News: Addison. Eric. Giving back by the numbers: Gloria Ford Gilmer, Ph.D., '49. 9 April 2017. Morgan Magazine. 1. Morgan State University. October 27, 2011. 16.
  4. Web site: African-American Mathematicians and the Mathematical Association of America. 2015. Nkwanta. Asamoah. Barber. Janet E.. 10 June 2020.
  5. Mishoe. Luna I.. Ford. Gloria C.. 1956-02-01. On the limit of the coefficients of the eigenfunction series associated with a certain non-self-adjoint differential system. Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society. en. 7. 2. 260. 10.1090/S0002-9939-1956-0077754-3. 0002-9939. free.
  6. Mishoe. L. I.. Ford. G. C.. 1956. On the uniform convergence of a certain eigenfunction series.. Pacific Journal of Mathematics. en. 6. 2. 271–278. 10.2140/pjm.1956.6.271. 0030-8730. free.
  7. African Americans in Mathematics II: Fourth Conference for African-American Researchers in the Mathematical Sciences, June 16–19, 1998, Rice University, Houston, Texas. Black Research Mathematicians in the United States. Williams. Scott W.. Contemporary Mathematics. 252. 1999. 165–168. 10.1090/conm/252/13. American Mathematical Society. free.
  8. Polygon. Miami Dade College. African Americans in Mathematical Sciences - A Chronological Introduction. 10 June 2020. Shakil. M.. 27–42.
  9. Web site: Gloria Ford Gilmer. Black Women in Mathematics. State University of New York at Buffalo. Williams. Scott W.. 2008. 10 June 2020.
  10. Web site: Gloria Gilmer Abstract. 2020-06-10. www.agnesscott.edu.
  11. Web site: Mathematical Patterns in African American Hairstyles. Gilmer. Gloria. 2008. 10 June 2020. Mathematicians of the African Diaspora.
  12. Book: Bangura, Abdul Karim. African Mathematics: From Bones to Computers. University Press of America. 2011. 978-0-7618-5348-0.
  13. Web site: Ethnomathematics: An African American Perspective On Developing Women In Mathematics. 2020-06-10. www.nottingham.ac.uk.
  14. Web site: ISGEm International Study Group on Ethnomathematics. Main Page. 10 June 2020. 28 March 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150328104801/http://isgem.rpi.edu/. dead.
  15. Web site: Cox-Talbot Lecture. National Association of Mathematicians. 10 June 2020. 14 February 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20210214165933/https://www.nam-math.org/cox-talbot-lecture.html. dead.
  16. Web site: Milwaukeean becomes first Black woman mathematician to have her papers in Library of Congress manuscript collection . 2023-02-21 . Journal Sentinel . en-US.
  17. Web site: Milwaukee mathematician, teacher inspired Black students to see math within themselves. 2022-01-15. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. en.
  18. Web site: Mrs. Gloria Ford Gilmer . Northwest Funeral Chapel . 15 November 2023.
  19. Web site: The AMS Claytor-Gilmer Fellowship. 2021-05-24. American Mathematical Society. en.

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