2022-Gala Program Online Honoree -4.14.2022
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HONOREE<br />
JOAN S. BIRMAN ’48, PhD<br />
National Academy of Sciences<br />
Joan S. Birman is a professor emerita of mathematics<br />
at Barnard College, where she earned her bachelor’s<br />
degree in 1948. Until 1961 she worked for engineering<br />
firms in the New York area, focusing on aircraft<br />
navigation computers. During this period, she also<br />
got married and cared for her three children. In<br />
1961, she began graduate studies part-time at the<br />
Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University, receiving<br />
her doctorate in 1968. She then became an assistant professor at Stevens<br />
Institute of Technology. In 1974, she joined the faculty of Barnard College.<br />
Within mathematics, Professor Birman’s primary area of interest is lowdimensional<br />
topology. She is known for her discoveries of unexpected<br />
connections between braid groups and other parts of mathematics; for<br />
example, the dynamical systems that underlie chaos.<br />
Over the years, she has received fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan<br />
Foundation and Guggenheim Foundation, became a fellow of the<br />
American Mathematical Society, and was elected to both the American<br />
Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Science Foundation. In<br />
2021, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. She holds the<br />
degree of Doctor Honoris Causa from the Israel Institute of Technology in<br />
Haifa, Israel.
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