Emma Castelnuovo

Emma Castelnuovo (12 December 1913 – 13 April 2014) was an Italian mathematician and teacher of Jewish descent.

In 2013, the year of her 100th birthday, the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction created an award named after Castelnuovo to recognize outstanding contributions to mathematics education.

Education and career Emma Castelnuovo in collaboration with the Municipal Board of Chamberi carried out the experiment 'Mathematics in the Street' on Sunday, 21 May 2017, at Fuencarral street. Emma Castelnuovo was born in Rome on 12 December 1913, the fifth child of Elbina and Guido Castelnuovo; her father and her mother's brother Federigo Enriques were both professors of mathematics.

Castelnuovo graduated from the University of Rome in 1936 with a thesis on algebraic geometry. After this she worked as a librarian at the same university. She won a permanent position there in 1938, but later that year, Italy passed new laws preventing Jews from holding state positions, preventing her from taking it.

She died in Rome on 13 April 2014 and was buried in the Verano cemetery with her father and mother.

Selected works Castelnuovo authored dozens of publications.

Intuitive geometry for lower secondary schools, Rome, Carabba, 1949; Florence, The New Italy, 1952; 1959. The numbers. Practical arithmetic, Florence, La Nuova Italia, 1962. Didactics of Mathematics Florence, La Nuova Italia, 1963. Documents of a mathematical exhibition. "From children to men", Turin, Boringhieri, 1972. Mathematics in reality, with Mario Barra, Turin, Boringhieri, 1976. Mathematics, Florence, New Italy, 1979. Pots, shadows, ants. Traveling with mathematics, Scandicci, La Nuova Italia, 1993. The math workshop. Reasoning with materials. The lessons of the greatest Italian researcher in mathematics education, Molfetta, La Meridiana, 2008.