Raising the Status of the Emmy Noether Lecturers

[sor...@comet.lehman.cuny.edu]

One way to raise the status of women mathematicians would be to raise
the status of our top women. This can be started by promoting the
image of our Emmy Noether Lecturers. Certainly, given the fact that
this award is in recognition of the top women in all of mathematics of
diverse fields, this award should be viewed with the same distinction
as say the Veblin Prize in geometry. There are more women in
mathematics than geometers.

Right now the Emmy Noether Lecturers are listed at

http://www.awm-math.org/noetherlectures.html

with links to brief biographies that include only a sentence or two
about their groundbreaking research.

As a first step towards raising the status of these women, I propose
that serious descriptions of their research be written on a level that
can be read by a dean of faculty if he or she is a scientist. Last
Spring my colleagues Nik Likic and Katherine StJohn and I wrote such a
description for Linda Keen which was sent to our dean along with
supporting letters nominating her for an internal prize that she was
granted. This is now linked to from the webpage the department created
for her, which also now mentions she is an Emmy Noether Lecturer:

http://math.gc.cuny.edu/homepages/Keen.html

I would like to create a webpage linking to similar descriptions for
all the Emmy Noether Lecturers. If you know of such a description for
any of these women, please email me the link. If you'd like to write
one or know someone who might, please let me know. I'd be happy to
coauthor a description with a mathematician in the correct field of
research.

I have posted a similar message to this one at:

http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=1481898

if you'd like to respond there rather than here.

[sor...@comet.lehman.cuny.edu]

Other steps that can be taken:

Ask the Emmy Noether lecturers to create webpages which explicitly
mention they were Emmy Noether lecturers. In this way mathematicians
who admire their work but are unaware of the reward will learn more
about it.

Be sure to ask top men and women in your field to consider nominating
someone in the field for an Emmy Noether award. The more women who
are nominated, the more recognized the award will become. If a
powerful mathematician undertakes the responsibility of promoting a
woman for this award, he may also consider nominating her for other
field specific awards.

Promote the visibility of Emmy Noether Lecturers by nominating them for
other top awards like the National Academy of Science.