Josephine Roe

Josephine Robinson Roe (May 5, 1858 – April 29, 1946) was an American mathematician and university professor. In 1918, she was the first woman to receive a doctorate in mathematics from Syracuse University, and one of the few American women to earn a PhD in mathematics before World War II.

Biography Josephine Alberta Robinson was born in Meredith, New Hampshire, to Frances Eliza Weld and Joseph Wadleigh Robinson, who was a farmer. Josephine graduated from the New Hampton Literary Institution in 1880 and taught in New Hampshire schools for more than a decade before entering college. Her early teaching assignments included teaching public district schools in New Hampshire for about 15 months, high school principal in Laconia, New Hampshire from 1880 to 1882, and teaching at her alma mater New Hampton Literary Institution. In 1918, at the age of 60, she became the first female PhD student at Syracuse to receive her doctorate in mathematics with the dissertation: Interfunctional Expressibility Problems Symmetric Functions. Her research was directed by her husband, E.D. Roe.

Josephine Robinson Roe died April 29, 1946 in Newton, Massachusetts, just a few days before she would have turned 88.

Memberships According to Green, Roe belonged to several professional organizations. American Mathematical Society American Astronomical Society American Association for the Advancement of Science Phi Beta Kappa Sigma Xi