User:AMM Pittsburgh/Roberta Frances Johnson

Roberta Frances Johnson (January 22, 1902–October 12, 1988) was an American mathematician and one of the few women to earn a PhD in that subject in the United States before World War II.

Biography

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she was the daughter of Mary Wallace (Abdill) and Jesse B. Johnson. She attended Philadelphia's Frankford High School. In 1925, she graduated in mathematics (with departmental honors) with a minor in history from Wilson College, in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. She taught mathematics at Chambersburg High School for three years and then taught both math and history at the high school in Newfoundland, Pennsylvania.

Financed by a fellowship from Wilson College, she studied at Cornell University and earned her master's degree with both her major and minor in mathematics. In 1933, she received her doctorate with her major subject geometry and her �first minor analysis, and second minor philosophy. Her dissertation in algebraic geometry, directed by Virgil Snyder, was titled Involutions of Order 2 Associated with Surfaces of Genera P(A)=P(G)=0, P(2)=1, P(3)=0.

Educator

Although she had hoped to remain at Cornell, Johnson was called back to Wilson College when the head of the mathematics department fell ill. Initially, Johnson was to substitute for about one month but that assignment was extended when the department head took a leave of absence. She stayed at Wilson on a temporary assignment for 1933-1934 but ended up remaining at the College for 25 years, first as an instructor until 1935, then assistant professor until 1944, when she was named associate professor. She was named department head after the former chair retired in 1946. In 1957, she grew unhappy with her role at Wilson and began looking for work elsewhere mentioning in a letter that part of her reasoning was a "refusal to accept the injustice of being passed over when promotions are made."

In 1958. Johnson moved to Fort Collins, Colorado, to become an associate professor at Colorado State University. There she directed the master's theses of about eight students. She stayed at Colorado State until 1967 when she retired as associate professor emeritus. The following spring the University of Colorado at Denver hired her as an associate professor, and she taught for another three years.

Johnson died October 12, 1988 of bone cancer at her Fort Collins home.