Anna Sfard

Last updated

Anna Sfard
Education
Father Zygmunt Bauman
Scientific career
FieldsPsychology
Institutions University of Haifa
Thesis Teaching Theory of Algorithms in High-School  (1989)
Doctoral advisor

Anna B. Sfard is a retired Israeli psychologist of mathematics education, focusing on the roles of communication and reification in mathematical reasoning. She is a professor emerita of Mathematics Learning Sciences at the University of Haifa. [1]

Contents

Education and career

Sfard is the daughter of sociologist and philosopher Zygmunt Bauman. [2] She began studying physics at the University of Warsaw in Poland in 1967. However, before completing her studies there, she moved to Israel with her father during the 1968 Polish political crisis, and entered the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics there in 1972, a master's degree in mathematics in 1977, and a Ph.D. in 1989. [3] Her doctoral dissertation, Teaching Theory of Algorithms in High-School, was jointly supervised by Menachem Magidor and Michael Maschler. [4]

After postdoctoral research in the UK, US, and Canada, she became an assistant professor of mathematics education at the University of Haifa in 1995. She was promoted to full professor there in 2001. She has also been Lappan-Phillips-Fitzgerald Professor of Mathematics Education at Michigan State University from 2003 to 2007, and Chair of Mathematics Education at the University of London from 2007 to 2009. [3] [5]

Selected publications

Sfard is the author of the book Thinking as communicating: Human development, development of discourses, and mathematizing (Cambridge University Press, 2008). [6]

She is also the author of two translations and the editor of several edited volumes in mathematics education. [7]

Her research articles include:

Recognition

Sfard was the recipient of the 2007 Hans Freudenthal Award of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction, "in recognition of her highly significant and scientifically deep accomplishments within a consistent, long-term research programme focused on objectification and discourse in mathematics education". [3]

She was elected as a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association in 2015. [5] She was elected as an international associate of the National Academy of Education in 2016, [8] and as an international honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2023. [1]

She was an invited speaker at the 2022 (virtual) International Congress of Mathematicians. [9]

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. 1 2 "Anna B. Sfard", International honorary members, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, retrieved 2024-08-10
  2. Sfard, Anna (15 July 2023), "About time: Celebrating in hindsight my father's (Zygmunt Bauman) affair with photography", Thesis 11: critical theory and historical sociology, retrieved 2024-08-10
  3. 1 2 3 The 2007 Hans Freudenthal Award, International Commission on Mathematical Instruction, retrieved 2024-08-10
  4. Anna Sfard at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  5. 1 2 Facts about Anna Sfard, University of Haifa, retrieved 2024-08-10
  6. Reviews of Thinking as communicating:
  7. Books by Anna Sfard, University of Haifa, retrieved 2024-08-10
  8. "Anna Sfard", Our members, National Academy of Education, retrieved 2024-08-10
  9. ICM Plenary and Invited Speakers, International Mathematical Union, retrieved 2024-08-10