Yueh-Gin Gung and Dr. Charles Y. Hu Award for Distinguished Service to Alice Turner Schafer

Abstract

algebra (group theory) and women in mathematics. As early as her high school years Alice exhibited a love for mathematics and an interest in teaching as a career. As a mathematics educator she championed the full participation of women in mathematics. She has been a strong role model for many women, and has worked to establish support groups for women in mathematics, to eliminate barriers women face in their study of mathematics and participation in the mathematics community, and to provide opportunity and encouragement for women in mathematics. She was one of the central figures in the early days of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM), through which she has helped to change the place of women in American mathematics. Yet her service goes far beyond her work on behalf of women. Alice Turner is a native of Virginia, where she spent her school years, earning a B.A. in mathematics from the University of Richmond. Lacking the financial means to attend graduate school, she taught secondary school mathematics for three years and then entered the University of Chicago, where she earned an M.S. and a Ph.D. Her dissertation in projective differential geometry was supervised by B. P. Lane and her published research in this area appeared in the Duke Mathematical Journal and in the American Journal of Mathematics. At the University of Chicago Alice met Richard Schafer, who was seeking a Ph.D. in mathematics. They were married as they completed their degrees. Their union has been blessed with two sons and three grandchildren. The Schafers' marriage was an early example of the two-body problem and the commuter marriage. Alice's first postgraduate position was at Connecticut College followed by one at The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. She then held positions at the University of Michigan, Douglass College, Swarthmore College, Drexel Institute of Technology, and the University of Connecticut before