Dona Strauss facts for kids

Dona Anschel Papert Strauss (born in April 1934) is a mathematician from South Africa. She works in advanced areas of mathematics called topology and functional analysis. Her early research helped start a field known as pointless topology. She has also been very active in politics, especially on the left side. She even lost a job because she protested against the Vietnam War. Dona Strauss also helped create European Women in Mathematics, a group for women in math.

A fellow mathematician, Neil Hindman, who wrote a book with Dona Strauss, once gave advice to other mathematicians. He said, "Find someone who is smarter than you are and get them to put your name on their papers." He added that for him, that smart person was Dona Strauss. This shows how highly he thought of her mathematical skills.

Education and Early Career

Dona Strauss grew up in South Africa. Her family were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. Her father was a physicist at the University of Cape Town. She earned her master's degree in mathematics from the University of Cape Town.

In 1958, she finished her Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge in England. Her main advisor was Frank Smithies. After her Ph.D., she started working at the University of London. In 1966, she moved to Dartmouth College in the United States. Later, around 1972, she worked at the University of Hull. By 2008, she became a professor at the University of Leeds. Even after retiring, she is still connected to Leeds as an honorary visiting fellow.

Fighting for Fairness

From a young age, Dona Strauss strongly disliked unfair treatment based on race. This feeling came from being Jewish during the Holocaust and seeing how society worked in South Africa. At the University of Cape Town, she joined a group called the Non-European Unity Movement. This group worked against racial discrimination. After finishing her degree, she left South Africa to protest against apartheid, which was a system of racial separation. Her parents also left South Africa later and moved to Israel.

In the 1950s, she often wrote articles for a magazine called Socialist Review. In the 1960s, she was active in a group called Solidarity (UK). These groups worked for social and political change.

In 1969, while she was a professor at Dartmouth College, Dona Strauss joined a student protest. The students were protesting against the Vietnam War. They occupied a college building. Because of this, Dartmouth College announced that Dona Strauss and another protesting professor would not have their jobs renewed. They were also suspended from teaching. This was the first time Dartmouth College had ever taken such a step against its faculty.

In 1986, Dona Strauss became one of the five people who started European Women in Mathematics. This organization helps support and connect women mathematicians in Europe.

Books She Wrote

Dona Strauss has written several important mathematics books with other authors:

• Algebra in the Stone-Čech compactification: Theory and applications (with Neil Hindman, 1998; 2nd edition, 2012)
• Banach algebras on semigroups and on their compactifications (with H. Garth Dales and Anthony T.-M. Lau, 2010)
• Banach spaces of continuous functions as dual spaces (with H. Garth Dales, Frederick K. Dashiell Jr., and Anthony T.-M. Lau, 2016)

Special Recognition

In 2009, the University of Cambridge held a special meeting. It was called "Algebra and Analysis around the Stone-Cech Compactification." This meeting was held to celebrate Dona Strauss's 75th birthday and her contributions to mathematics.

Her Life Outside Work

Dona Strauss was married to Seymour Papert. He was also from South Africa and studied with her at Cambridge. She met her second husband, Edmond Strauss, at the University of London.

She is a very good amateur chess player. She also served as a director for the Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue from 2014 to 2015.