Emilija Mlakar Branc

Emilija Mlakar Branc (10 November 1901 – 25 June 1989) was a Slovenian mathematician, mathematics professor, and author of mathematics textbooks. In 1928, she became the first woman to graduate in mathematics from the University of Ljubljana. She was the author and co-author of several textbooks on geometry and solid geometry, which were popular and reprinted several times.

Childhood She was born on 10 November 1901 in Ptuj, where her family had moved in 1899 from Moškanjci. She had twelve brothers and sisters, eight of whom reached adulthood. Among them was the later Austro-Hungarian army officer (1890–1946).

Education After completing primary and secondary education, she enrolled in the study of mathematics, pedagogical track, at the at University of Ljubljana; at that time, the faculty offered no other mathematics programme. During her studies, she lived as a lodger in an apartment in Ljubljana together with her younger brother, who was then a secondary-school student. They had no children (at least none who survived to adulthood). In 1928 she became the first woman, and the thirteenth person overall, to graduate in mathematics from the University of Ljubljana. In 1930 she became an assistant in physics at the in Ljubljana, where she worked until 1933.

In 1933, she was employed as a teacher of mathematics and physics at the State Real Gymnasium in Kranj (now the ), where she remained for one year. Among her students there was the later chemist Aleksandra Kornhauser Frazer, who later said that Emilija Mlakar Branc had "initiated her into logical thinking for life".

Between 1937 and 1952, Branc wrote, alone and with co-authors, four textbooks on geometry and two collections of exercises in solid geometry, which were popular in Slovenian lands and reprinted several times.

Later life and death In 1963, her husband died after a long illness. After retirement, she moved to live with relatives in Ptuj. She died on 25 June 1989 in Ptuj. She was buried at Rogoznica Cemetery in Ptuj.