Sylvia Bozeman facts for kids

Sylvia D. Trimble Bozeman (born in 1947 as Sylvia Trimble) is an African American mathematician and a teacher of Mathematics. She has worked hard to help more women and people from underrepresented groups succeed in math.

Early Life and Learning

Sylvia Bozeman was born in Camp Hill, Alabama on August 1, 1947. She was the third of five children. Her father was an insurance agent, so he worked with numbers every day. But it was her mother, who stayed at home, who first helped Sylvia love Mathematics.

Sylvia went to schools in Camp Hill that were separated by race. Her teachers and parents always told her to keep learning. Her high school math teacher, Mr. Frank Holley, made her even more interested. He even taught her and other students trigonometry after school. This was a course not usually taught there.

Sylvia finished Edward Bell High School in Camp Hill in 1964. She then went to Alabama A&M University to study Mathematics. During her summers, she worked on projects at NASA and Harvard University. She graduated in 1968 as the second-highest-ranking student.

After college, she moved with her husband, Robert, to Vanderbilt University. They both started their advanced studies there. She earned a master's degree in 1970. She faced challenges because she had not studied some courses that her white classmates had. For example, she missed a course called linear algebra. She later said she spent a long time learning it on her own.

Becoming a Doctor and Her Career

Sylvia and Robert Bozeman had a son and a daughter. While Robert finished his advanced math studies, Sylvia taught part-time. She taught at Vanderbilt and Tennessee State University. Her own research looked at how math can be used to process images. She also worked to help more women and minority groups succeed in math.

She earned her PhD in 1980. Her main project was about "Representations of Generalized Inverses of Fredholm Operators." When she graduated, she was one of the first Black women in the U.S. to earn a PhD in Math.

In 1974, Bozeman started teaching at Spelman College. This college in Atlanta, Georgia is for Black women. Her husband Robert taught at Morehouse College, another historically Black college. For nearly 40 years, she taught math at Spelman. She worked with other mathematicians who wanted to make Spelman's science and math programs better.

She started as an instructor in 1974. She became a full professor in 1991. At Spelman, Professor Bozeman taught many classes. These included calculus, abstract algebra, and even linear algebra. She also enjoyed helping students and newer teachers.

In 1976, Bozeman went back to school at Emory University for her doctorate. She still taught at Spelman at the same time. She got her doctorate from Emory in 1980. She was also the head of the Mathematics Department at Spelman from 1982 to 1993. In 1993, she started the Center for the Scientific Applications of Mathematics at Spelman College. She was also a Vice Provost there.

Sylvia Bozeman retired from Spelman in 2013. She had worked there for 39 years.

The EDGE Program

Sylvia Bozeman helped start a program called Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education (EDGE). This program helps women who are starting advanced studies in math. Bozeman noticed that male teachers sometimes did not understand how women approached their studies. For example, women might not speak much in class unless they were sure of their answers. She also saw that women might feel very bad if they got a B on an exam, while men might think a B was great.

The EDGE program brings in experienced students and experts. Students form study groups and learn how to share and receive information. Bozeman says this is very important for success in advanced studies. In 2007, the American Mathematical Society recognized the EDGE Program for being very effective.

Research and Awards

Bozeman's research has focused on functional analysis (a type of math) and image processing (how computers handle pictures). Her work has received money from groups like the Army Research Office, National Science Foundation, and NASA.

President Obama recognized her efforts to help women from underrepresented groups study math. He asked her to join the President’s Committee on the National Medal of Science.

She has received many awards and honors, including:

• Distinguished Alumni of the Year Award from Alabama A&M University (1996).
• President's Faculty Award for Distinguished Service from Spelman (1995).
• Distinguished Teaching Award from the Southeastern Section of the MAA (1995).
• White House Initiative Faculty Award for Excellence in Science and Technology (1988).
• Tenneco UNCF Award for Excellence in Teaching (1988).
• She was chosen to be part of Phi Beta Kappa, a respected honor society.
• In 1997, she became a Section Governor in the Mathematical Association of America (MAA). She was the first African-American to reach this level.
• Bozeman was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2009.
• In 2012, she became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
• In 2017, she was chosen as a fellow of the Association for Women in Mathematics in their first group of honorees.
• In 2019, she received the first MAA Award for Inclusivity.
• Mathematically Gifted & Black honored Bozeman during Black History Month in 2017.
• She is featured in a deck of playing cards that shows important women mathematicians. These cards were made by the Association for Women in Mathematics.