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Lillian K. Bradley

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Lillian Katie Bradley
Born(1921-10-15)October 15, 1921
DiedFebruary 11, 1995(1995-02-11) (aged 73)
NationalityAmerican
OccupationMathematician
Years active1938 - ???
Known forBeing the first black woman to receive a mathematics doctorate from the University of Texas

Lillian Katie Bradley (October 15, 1921[1] – February 11, 1995[2]) was an American mathematician and mathematics educator who in 1960 became the first African-American woman to earn a doctorate in any subject at the University of Texas at Austin.[1][3][4][5] She accomplished this ten years after African-Americans were first admitted to the school, despite the discriminatory views of R. L. Moore an influential professor in the mathematics department at University of Texas at Austin.[6]

Bradley was born in Tyler, Texas. She earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1938 from Texas College, and a master's degree in mathematics education in 1946 from the University of Michigan.[1] She became a teacher at a segregated black high school in Hawkins, Texas, at Paul Quinn College, and at Texas College, before becoming an assistant professor of mathematics at Prairie View A&M College. There, in 1957–1958, she was awarded a National Science Faculty Fellowship, one of only 100 awarded in the inaugural year of the program.[3]

She completed her doctorate at the University of Texas in July 1960.[3] Her dissertation, in mathematics education, was An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of a Collegiate General Mathematics Course.[7] In 1962 she moved from Prairie View to Texas Southern University, as an associate professor.[8]

Bradley died in February 1995 at the age of 76.[2]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Williams, Scott W., "Lillian K. Bradley", Black Women in Mathematics, State University of New York at Buffalo Department of Mathematics, retrieved 2018-02-20
  2. ^ a b "Dr. Lillian Bradley", Tyler Morning Telegraph, p. 6, February 13, 1995 – via Newspapers.com; note that this source has an incorrect birthdate.
  3. ^ a b c McDaniel, Vernon (November–December 1960), "Dr. Lillian Katie Bradley", News and Names, The Texas Standard, vol. 34, no. 5, p. 40
  4. ^ Webster, Raymond B. (1999), African American Firsts in Science and Technology, Gale Group, p. 403, ISBN 9780787638764
  5. ^ Winegarten, Ruthe; Humphrey, Janet G.; Werden, Frieda (2014), Black Texas Women: A Sourcebook, University of Texas Press, p. 307, ISBN 9780292785564
  6. ^ McCann, Mac (May 29, 2015), "Written in Stone: History of racism lives on in UT monuments", The Austin Chronicle
  7. ^ Suydan, Marilyn N. (December 1975), Compilation of Research on College Mathematics Education (PDF), National Institute of Education, p. 90
  8. ^ "News and Notices", American Mathematical Monthly, 69 (2): 181–185, February 1962, doi:10.1080/00029890.1962.11989853, JSTOR 2312575