Gertrude Blanch

Gertrude Blanch (February 2, 1897 – January 1, 1996) was an American mathematician who did pioneering work in numerical analysis and computation. She was a leader of the Mathematical Tables Project in New York from its beginning. She worked later as the assistant director and leader of the Numerical Analysis at UCLA computing division and was head of mathematical research for the Aerospace Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.

Early years and education Blanch was born on February 2, 1897, as Gittel Kaimowitz in Kolno to Wolfe Kaimowitz and Dora Blanc. Kolno was historically a part of Poland, but was part of the Russian Empire at the time. Blanch was the youngest of seven children.

Blanch attended schools within Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from Eastern District High School in 1914. Later that year, Kaimowitz died, so Blanch decided to take a job to support her family. Blanch worked clerical positions for fourteen years (1914-1928), saving money for school along the way.

Career Blanch was unable to find a job in her area of study after she graduated with her PhD, due to the Great Depression. While the Planning Committee was in operation, it included women other than Blanch such as Ida Rhodes, Jenny Rosenthal, and Irene Stegun. With her name cleared, she was able to resume her work.

Subsequently, she worked for the Institute for Numerical Analysis at UCLA until it was closed in June 1954. Tables of Planck's Radiation and Photon Functions (1940)

Honors, awards, and tributes In 1963, she was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1964, she received the Federal Woman's Award, an award for women who had exemplary professional service in the United States Government. Air Force Outstanding Performance Award (1958) Air Force Exceptional Service Award (1963)

Ida Rhodes dedicated her 1965 talk "The Mighty Man-Computer Team" to Blanch, saying "She has always exemplified for me everything that is noble, true, and admirable in a human being. To her I owe whatever success I have had in my career, for she taught me everything I know about computation and numerical analysis."

In 1967, Gaetano Fichera wrote of "the critical sharpness of [Blanch's] mind, her sensitivity to the quantitative study of problems, her capacity to perceive the subtle barrier which separates a purely theoretical procedure from a method leading to effective evaluation and, above all her intransigeant scientific scrupulousness, all these many qualities make of her a very distinguished numerical analysis. Ample witness of our affirmation is not only the high acknowledgment accorded to her mathematical activity but especially the imposing mass of her work in the field of numerical analysis."

Later years Blanch retired in 1967 at the age of 69, but through Ohio State University continued working as a consultant for the Air Force until 1970 when Ohio State canceled all military funded contracts. Thereafter she moved to San Diego, California where she worked on her book about functional approximations until it was completed in 1982 but never published. Blanch then continued to work on numerical solutions of Mathieu functions, specifically concentrating on the use of continued fractions to achieve highly accurate results in a small number of computational steps to which she completed an unpublished manuscript. She continued this research until her death in January 1996.

The Gertrude Blanch Papers, 1932–1996 are accessible at the Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.