Born: 17 November 1917, United States
Died: 25 August 2005
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Ruth Aaronson
American mathematician Ruth Aaronson Bari was known for her work in graph theory (modelling relationships between different points) and algebraic homomorphisms (mapping algebraic structures), especially chromatic polynomials.
After earning her Bachelor’s in math at Brooklyn College in 1939, she enrolled in a doctoral program at Johns Hopkins University, but moved into a Master’s instead when the university began pushing women in her program to give up their fellowships to men returning from WWII. She then left the field for 20 years after marrying, raising three daughters:
– Judi Bari became a leading labor rights, women’s rights and environmental activist.
– Gina Kolata became a math, health and science journalist for The New York Times.
– Martha Bari became an art historian, teaching at Hood College.
Returning to Johns Hopkins, she finally earned her PhD at age 47, with a thesis titled “Absolute Reducibility of Maps of at Most 19 Regions,” and became a professor at George Washington University in 1966. She taught for more than 20 years before retiring at 70, as was legally required at the time. While at GWU, she participated in a successful class-action suit against the university to fight sexism in pay and promotions for faculty members. She also secured a National Science Foundation grant in the early 1970s to create a Master’s program for math teachers, due to her concern that many were not as prepared as they needed to be.