Helen Calkins

Helen Calkins (1893–1970) was an American mathematician and professor, and one of the few women to earn a PhD in mathematics in the United States before World War II.

Biography Helen Calkins was born on October 20, 1893, to Anna Burns Schermerhorn and Addison Niles Calkins, in Quincy, Illinois. The eldest of two daughters, she was a student at Quincy High School from 1908–1912 and then she attended Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, starting in 1912, graduating in 1916 with a special honor in mathematics. Her first job was teaching math at a junior high school in Quincy. In 1917 she taught at the senior high school in Jacksonville, Illinois for a year before returning to Knox College as a math instructor 1918–1920. In February 1932 at Columbia University (1920–1921) she earned her master's degree with the thesis: The unity in mathematics, as illustrated by a certain differential equation. Her dissertation was titled, Some Implicit Functional Theorems, which concerned "a problem of maximizing a functional not of the ordinary calculus of variations type." Roos referred to it writing "I think that Miss Calkins' thesis is of unusual interest."

Memberships According to Judy Green, Calkins belonged to the Delta Delta Delta social sorority, the Pi Lambda Theta education honor and professional association, the College Club of Pittsburgh, and the Daughters of the American Revolution as well as several professional societies. Mathematical Association of America Sigma Delta Epsilon American Association of University Professors Phi Mu Epsilon