Barbara Gertrude Yates

Barbara Gertrude Yates (1919-1998) was an Irish mathematician who seems to have been the first woman born and brought up in Ireland to gain a PhD in pure mathematics.[1][2]

Life and career

She was born in January 1919 in Dublin, to a family with a tradition of excelling in mathematics at Trinity College Dublin. Her Offaly-born father James Yates (1869-1929) had been a Trinity Scholar in Mathematics prior to his graduation in 1891, and was a school inspector in various parts of Ireland until 1922, when the whole family moved to Belfast following the partition of Ireland. Her older brothers Henry George Yates (1908-1954) and James Garrett Yates (1917-1957) had also been Trinity Scholars in Mathematics, in 1927 and 1936 respectively.[3] She herself received that distinction in 1940, graduating BA in mathematics in 1941.[3]

She was on the teaching staff at Queens University Belfast 1942-1945, then at the University of Aberdeen 1945-1948, following which she moved to Royal Holloway College, where she lectured until her retirement at age 65.[4] In 1952 she completed her PhD, awarded the following year by the University of Aberdeen, with a thesis entitled "A difference-differential equation". Her advisor was E. M. Wright.[5]

References

  1. ↑ The First Irish Woman with a Doctorate in Maths Mathematics Ireland
  2. ↑ The first woman born and brought up in Ireland to get a PhD in mathematical science–as opposed to pure mathematics–was Sheila Tinney, in 1941.
  3. 1 2 "List of Scholars". TCD Life.
  4. ↑ Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians, 1954 by Johan Gerretsen and Johannes de Groot; Erven P. Noordhoff N.V., Groningen North-Holland Publishing Co., Amsterdam 1957.
  5. ↑ The Linear Difference-Differential Equation With Linear Coefficients By Barbara G. Yates, Royal Holloway College, University Of London
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