Sally Cockburn facts for kids

Sally Patricia Cockburn (born in 1960) is a smart mathematician who studies many different areas of math. She looks into topics like algebraic topology (which is about shapes and spaces), set theory (which deals with collections of things), and graph theory (which uses diagrams to solve problems). She also works on combinatorial optimization, which is about finding the best way to do things when there are many choices.

Sally Cockburn was born in Canada and later moved to the United States. She is now a special professor of mathematics at Hamilton College. She used to be in charge of the math department there too!

Becoming a Mathematician

Sally Cockburn grew up in Ottawa, Canada. She went to Queen's University in Ontario and earned two degrees there, one in 1982 and another in 1984. She also got another master's degree from the University of Ottawa.

She continued her studies at Yale University and earned her Ph.D. in 1991. Her special research was about a complex math topic called "The Gamma-Filtration on Extra-Special P-Groups." Her professor, Ronnie Lee, helped her with this work.

Teaching at Hamilton College

After finishing her studies, Sally Cockburn joined the team at Hamilton College in 1991. She worked hard and became a full professor in 2014. Besides teaching math, she also coached the college's squash team for a while!

Awards and Recognition

In 2014, Sally Cockburn won an important award called the Carl B. Allendoerfer Award. She won it with Joshua Lesperance for their interesting work on a math problem they called "deranged socks." This problem was a fun twist on counting "derangements," which are ways to arrange things so that nothing ends up in its original spot.