Mildred Sanderson Explained

Mildred Leonora Sanderson
Birth Date:	12 May 1889
Birth Place:	Waltham, Massachusetts, U.S.
Death Place:	East Bridgewater, Massachusetts, U.S.
Resting Place:	Mount Feake Cemetery, Waltham
Fields:	Mathematics
Thesis Title:	Formal modular invariants with application to binary modular covariants
Thesis Url:	https://www.ams.org/journals/tran/1913-014-04/S0002-9947-1913-1500961-3/S0002-9947-1913-1500961-3.pdf
Thesis Year:	1913
Doctoral Advisor:	Leonard Eugene Dickson
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Mildred Leonora Sanderson (May 12, 1889 – October 10, 1914) was an American mathematician, best known for her mathematical theorem concerning modular invariants.^[1]

Life

Sanderson was born in Waltham, Massachusetts, in 1889 and was the valedictorian of her class at the Waltham High School. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1910, winning Senior Honors in Mathematics. She obtained her Ph.D degree from the University of Chicago in 1913, publishing the thesis in which she set forth her mathematical theorem. She was Leonard Eugene Dickson's first female doctoral student.

After completing her Ph.D., Sanderson briefly taught at the University of Wisconsin before her untimely death in 1914 due to tuberculosis.

Sanderson's theorem

Sanderson's theorem states:"To any modular invariant

of a system of forms under any group

of linear transformations with coefficients in the field

{\rmGF}[p^n]

, there corresponds a formal invariant

under

such that

I=i

for all sets of values in the field of the coefficients of the system of forms." Often this theorem was cited as “Miss Sanderson’s Theorem”.^[1]

Recognition

She is mentioned in the 2008 book Pioneering women in American mathematics: the pre-1940 PhD's, by Judy Green and Jeanne LaDuke.^[2]

Notes and References

Web site: Mildred Leonora Sanderson. www.agnesscott.edu. 2018-03-14.
Book: Pioneering Women in American Mathematics - The Pre-1940 PhD's . 978-0-8218-4376-5 . Judy . Green . Judy Green (mathematician) . Jeanne . LaDuke . Jeanne LaDuke . . History of Mathematics . 34 . 1st . 2008 . Biography on p.542-543 of the Supplementary Material at AMS