Tag Archives: African Descent

Yewande Olubummo is a Nigerian mathematician who works in the United States. In 2006-2010 she was chair of the mathematics department at Spelman College. She publishes papers on functional analysis and dynamical systems. With National Science Foundation support she led a programme to encourage minority undergraduates in mathematics to go on to graduate study.

Verdiana Masanja is the first Tanzanian woman to earn a doctorate in mathematics. She became a professor at the University of Dar es Salaam. She works to increase women’s participation in science, mathematics and technology education in Africa.

Marie Françoise Ouedraogo became the first female doctorate from Burkina Faso. She is President of the African Women Mathematicians Association, and a member of IMU Women in Mathematics Advisory Group.

Joséphine Guidy-Wandja was the first African woman with a Doctorat 3ème cycle in mathematics (Paris VI), the first African woman with a Ph.D. in mathematics (Abidjan) and the first African woman to become a professor of mathematics in a university (Abidjan).

Olabisi Ugbebor is the first female professor of mathematics in Nigeria. She has written many papers on Brownian motion and on economics, and is a co-author of books such as Further Mathematics, Analytical Geometry and Mechanics, and Fundamentals of Abstract Algebra.

Talitha Washington is an American mathematician who, in 2001, became the first African American to graduate with a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Connecticut. She became co-leader of the National Science Foundation’s ‘Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions’ programme and won the 2019 Black Engineer of the Year STEM Innovator Award.

Katherine Okikiolu was awarded a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers for both her mathematical research and her development of mathematics curricula for inner-city school children.