Fern Hunt | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | January 14, 1948 New York City, U.S. |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields |
|
| Institutions | |
Fern Yvette Hunt (born January 14, 1948) is an African American [1] mathematician known for her work in applied mathematics and mathematical biology. [2] She currently works as a researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where she conducts research on the ergodic theory of dynamical systems. [3]
Hunt was born in New York City on January 14, 1948, to Daphne Lindsay and Thomas Edward Hunt. Her sister, Erica Hunt, is a published poet and author. Hunt's grandparents immigrated to the United States from Jamaica before World War I. [4] [2] Her family lived in a primarily black housing project in Hampton. Her father did not graduate from high school, and though her mother attended Hunter College for two years, she did not earn a degree. When Hunt was 9 years old, her mother gifted her a chemistry set for Christmas, which sparked her early interest in science. Hunt's middle school science teacher, Charles Wilson, further encouraged Hunt to pursue math and science. [2] [5] Hunt attended the Bronx High School of Science, and it was during her time in high school that her primary focus shifted from science to mathematics. [6] After graduating high school, Hunt attended Bryn Mawr College following the encouragement of her mother, earning an A.B. in mathematics in 1969. [4] She went on to earn a master's degree and PhD in mathematics from the Courant Institute of Mathematics at New York University in 1978. [7] Her PhD thesis (1978) Genetic and Spatial Variation in some Selection-Migration Models was advised by Frank Hoppensteadt. [4]
Hunt began her academic career at the University of Utah, and in 1978, she accepted a job as an assistant professor at Howard University. She remained a member of the Department of Mathematics at Howard until 1993. While at Howard, she also worked for the National Institutes of Health in the Laboratory of Mathematical Biology (1981-1982) and the National Bureau of Standards (1986-1991). [4] Additionally, from 1988 to 1991, she was a member of the GRE Mathematics Advisory Board at Educational Testing Service (ETS). In 1993, she left Howard and began working for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where she worked on mathematical problems from physics and chemistry research. While working at NIST she continued her research on the ergodic theory of dynamical systems. [7]
Fern also lectures at colleges and universities to encourage students in mathematics. She uses her experiences of the setbacks she experienced as a black woman in mathematics to mentor minority students interested in mathematics. In 1998 she was an instructor at a summer workshop for women entering Ph.D. programs in mathematics run by the EDGE Foundation (Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education). [7]
In 2000, Hunt received the Arthur S. Flemming Award for her contributions to probability and stochastic modeling, mathematical biology, computational geometry, nonlinear dynamics, computer graphics, and parallel computing. [8] She has been a member of the Bryn Mawr College board of trustees since 1992 and the Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee for the United States Department of Energy since 1994. [7]
Hunt was included in the 2019 class of fellows of the American Mathematical Society "for outstanding applications of mathematics to science and technology, exceptional service to the US government, and for outreach and mentoring". [9] The Association for Women in Mathematics has included her in the 2020 class of AWM Fellows for "her exceptional commitment to outreach and mentoring; for her sustained efforts to make the AWM organization more inclusive; for her service to higher education and government; and for inspiring those underrepresented in mathematics with her work in ergodic theory, probability, and computation". [10]
Hunt's work earned her recognition by Mathematically Gifted & Black as a Black History Month 2017 Honoree. [6]
Helen Giessler Grundman is an American mathematician. She is the Director of Education and Diversity at the American Mathematical Society and Research Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Bryn Mawr College. Grundman is noted for her research in number theory and efforts to increase diversity in mathematics.
Sylvia Margaret Wiegand is an American mathematician.
Sylvia D. Trimble Bozeman is an African American mathematician and Mathematics educator.
Bryna Rebekah Kra is an American mathematician and Sarah Rebecca Roland Professor at Northwestern University who is on the board of trustees of the American Mathematical Society and was elected the president of the American Mathematical Society in 2021. As a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, Kra has made significant contributions to the structure theory of characteristic factors for multiple ergodic averages. Her academic work centered on dynamical systems and ergodic theory, and uses dynamical methods to address problems in number theory and combinatorics.
Rhonda Jo Hughes is an American mathematician, the Helen Herrmann Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Bryn Mawr College.
Trachette Levon Jackson is an American mathematician who is a professor of mathematics at the University of Michigan and is known for work in mathematical oncology. She uses many different approaches, including continuous and discrete mathematical models, numerical simulations, and experiments to study tumor growth and treatment. Specifically, her lab is interested in "molecular pathways associated with intratumoral angiogenesis," "cell-tissue interactions associated with tumor-induced angiogenesis," and "tumor heterogeneity and cancer stem cells."
Zvezdelina Entcheva Stankova is an American mathematician who is a professor of mathematics at Mills College and a teaching professor at the University of California, Berkeley, the founder of the Berkeley Math Circle, and an expert in the combinatorial enumeration of permutations with forbidden patterns.
Kathryn Pamela Hess is an American mathematician who has served as professor of mathematics at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) since 1999. She is known for her work on homotopy theory, category theory, and algebraic topology, both pure and applied. In particular, she applies the methods of algebraic topology to the study of neurology, cancer biology, and materials science. She is a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
Erica Nicole Walker is an American mathematician and the Clifford Brewster Upton Professor of Mathematics Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she also serves as the Chairperson of the Department of Mathematics, Science, and Technology and as the Director of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education. Walker’s research focuses on the "social and cultural factors as well as educational policies and practices that facilitate mathematics engagement, learning and performance, especially for underserved students".
Ulrica Wilson is a mathematician specializing in the theory of noncommutative rings and in the combinatorics of matrices. She is an associate professor at Morehouse College, associate director of diversity and outreach at the Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics (ICERM), and a former vice president of the National Association of Mathematicians.
Dawn Alisha Lott is an applied mathematician at Delaware State University, where she is a professor in the department of physical and computational sciences and, since 2009, the director of the university's honors program.
Carla Denise Cotwright-Williams is an American mathematician who works as a Technical Director and Data Scientist for the United States Department of Defense. She was the second African-American woman to earn a doctorate in mathematics at the University of Mississippi.
Talitha Washington is an American mathematician and academic who specializes in applied mathematics and STEM education policy. She was recognized by Mathematically Gifted & Black as a Black History Month 2018 Honoree. Washington became the 26th president of the Association for Women in Mathematics in 2023.
Sue Geller is an American mathematician and a professor emerita of mathematics at the department of mathematics at Texas A&M University. She is noted for her research background in algebraic K-theory, as well as her interdisciplinary work in bioinformatics and biostatistics, among other disciplines.
Roselyn Elaine Williams is an American mathematician who is an Associate Professor and former chair of the mathematics department at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University. Her decades long involvement in the National Association of Mathematicians includes a 14 year term as secretary-treasurer.
Omayra Ortega is an American mathematician, specializing in mathematical epidemiology. Ortega is an associate professor of mathematics & statistics at Sonoma State University in Sonoma County, California, and the president of the National Association of Mathematicians (NAM).
Raegan J. Higgins is an American mathematician and co-director of the EDGE program for Women. She is also one of the co-founders of the website Mathematically Gifted & Black, which highlights the accomplishments of Black mathematicians.
Bonita Valerie Saunders is an American mathematician specializing in mathematical visualization. She works at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the Applied and Computational Mathematics Division of the Information Technology Laboratory, where she contributes to the Digital Library of Mathematical Functions as the Visualization Editor and the principal designer of visualizations and graphs.
Emma Katherine Tara Benn is an American biostatistician whose research includes causal inference in health disparities as a way to help find targets for intervention against these disparities. She works at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where she is an associate professor in the Department of Population Health Science, affiliated with the Center for Biostatistics. She is also associate dean of faculty well-being and development, and the founding director of the Center for Scientific Diversity at the Icahn School.
Keisha Cook is an assistant professor for the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences at Clemson University.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
