Lida Barrett

Lida Baker Kittrell Barrett (May 21, 1927 – January 28, 2021 ) was an American mathematics professor and administrator. She served on many committees and boards and contributed to mathematics, mathematics education, and increasing the participation of members of underrepresented groups in mathematics. She served as president of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) in 1989 and 1990.

Early life and education Lida Baker Kittrell was born on May 21, 1927, in Houston, Texas. She earned her baccalaureate, masters, and doctorate degrees in mathematics from Rice University (1946), the University of Texas at Austin (1949), and the University of Pennsylvania (1954), respectively. Her 1954 doctoral dissertation, Regular Curves and Regular Points of Finite Order, was supervised by John Robert Kline.

Career She taught briefly at the Texas State College for Women in Denton, now Texas Woman's University.

Barrett served as a mathematics faculty member at the universities of Utah and Tennessee, and headed the mathematics department at the University of Tennessee from 1973 to 1980. During her tenure there, she also worked at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in applied mathematics. She was a fellow of the American Mathematical Society and part of the 2019 class of fellows of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM). Her AWM fellow citation read "for her profound and long-lasting effect in diversifying the committees and leadership of the MAA, during and beyond her term as its second woman president; for her value to the mathematics community as a pioneer and defender of women and underrepresented groups".