Chawne Kimber

Chawne Monique Kimber ( ; born 1971) is an African-American mathematician and quilter, known for expressing her political activism in her quilts. After working as a professor and head of mathematics at Lafayette College, and as Dean of the College at Washington and Lee University, she was named as vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty at Pitzer College in 2025.

Education and career Kimber, a native of Frankfort, Kentucky, comes from a family of cotton farmers and quilters in Alabama. Although she writes that she "always loved math", she began her undergraduate studies at the University of Florida by studying engineering before switching to mathematics because she found it more fulfilling. She earned a master's degree at the University of North Carolina in 1995, as a student of Idris Assani. She returned to the University of Florida for doctoral studies, completing her Ph.D. in 1999. Her dissertation, Prime Ideals in Rings of Continuous Functions, connects abstract algebra with functional analysis and was supervised by Jorge Martinez.

After a term as Van Vleck Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Wesleyan University, she joined Lafayette College as an assistant professor. In mathematics, she is known for incorporating concepts of social justice into her classroom teaching. She was a Professor and then head of the Math Department. This six-week program where incoming students take college level writing and calculus address along with modules in STEM. Students are those who are identified as leaders from groups typically underrepresented in STEM fields. In 2018, Kimber was one of six recipients of the prestigious Clare Booth Luce Scholarship to attend the HERS (Higher Education Resource Services) Institute. While head of the Math Department, the department "worked to promote an inclusive culture based on the understanding that math is a gateway to many other fields in the sciences, technology and engineering".

In May 2021, Washington and Lee University announced that Kimber would become the school's Dean of the College effective July 1, 2021. She is responsible "for 21 departments and 13 interdisciplinary programs. The dean serves as chair of the Committee on Courses and Degrees and belongs to the Faculty Executive Committee. The dean reports to the provost and serves on the Provost's Academic Council as well as the President's Council". Her work has been associated with the "modern Quilting" movement, based on its geometric design and provocative content. Her work includes varied subject matter that raise social issues including the killing of African Americans and sexual assault.

Kimber's quilts are frequently included at quilting shows and museum exhibits of quilting. The Paul Mellon Arts Center put up a show of her works in 2018. One of her quilts inspired by the death of Eric Garner won first place at QuiltCon West in 2016, Her work, still not, was acquired by the Smithsonian American Art Museum as part of the Renwick Gallery's 50th Anniversary Campaign. This exhibition highlighted that the piece's fabrics were "sourced from mid-century textiles".