Judy Roitman Named to Inaugural Class of AWM Fellows Program

Judy Roitman, professor emeritus of mathematics, has been selected to the inaugural class of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) Fellows Program. The Executive Committee of the AWM has established the AWM Fellows Program to recognize individuals who have demonstrated a sustained commitment to the support and advancement of women in the mathematical sciences, consistent with the AWM mission: “to encourage women and girls to study and to have active careers in the mathematical sciences, and to promote equal opportunity and the equal treatment of women and girls in the mathematical sciences.”

The inaugural class of the AWM Fellows Program will be honored on January 10, 2018, at the AWM Reception and Award Ceremony at the Joint Mathematical Meetings (JMM) in San Diego. To initiate the Program, the inaugural class of Fellows has

been designated by the AWM Executive Committee drawing from a group of mathematicians who have shown an unwavering commitment to promoting and supporting women in mathematics. While this list of Fellows includes only a small number of deserving individuals, we hope that the mathematical community will nominate worthy candidates in the coming years, so that we can recognize the amazing contributions of so many people on behalf of the advancement of women and girls in the field of mathematics.

Roitman has been active in the AWM since its early years, and she served as President for the term 1979–1981. She received the 1990 Louise Hay Award for Contributions to Mathematics Education from the AWM and was named a 2013 Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. She was involved in the field of mathematics education for much of her career, running workshops for elementary school teachers and high school teachers and observing them in the classroom. She has encouraged individual mathematicians and the mathematical community at large to get involved and take mathematics education more seriously. She was in the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics writing group that produced Principles and Standards for School Mathematics.

Roitman received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1974. She came to KU in 1977 and retired in 2014 as a full professor. She has a long and distinguished career as a mathematics researcher, advocate for women in mathematics, and mathematics educator. Her research activity in set-theoretic topology and Boolean algebra spans several decades, and she has encouraged other research mathematicians to be actively interested in education and educational reform. She has served on committees such as the MSEB Panel on College and University Programs, the AMS Committee on Education, and the MER Advisory Board.