Lucy Joan Slater

Lucy Joan Slater (5 January 1922 – 6 June 2008) was a mathematician who worked on hypergeometric functions, and who found many generalizations of the Rogers–Ramanujan identities.

Early life Slater was born in 1922 and homeschooled for much of her early education. Her father died when she was nine years old. Slater was interested in jazz music and played the piano as an accompanist in her early years. She attended college at Bedford College and received her first B.A. from London University in 1944. During the war, she worked teaching soldiers trigonometry. She received an M.A. and Ph.D. from London University while studying hypergeometric equations, including her publication of a list of over 100 Rogers-Ramanujan Identities. Later, she received a D.Litt. from London University as well. In the early 1950s she played a leading role at Cambridge University in devising a precursor of modern computer operating systems, and subsequently she helped to develop computer programs for econometrics, working for much of the time with UK government officials. She received a Ph.D. and Sc.D. from Cambridge and was named assistant director of Research in the Department of Economics in 1962.

Publications

(there is a 2008 paperback with ) Fortran programs for economists, Cambridge University Press, 1967 First steps in basic Fortran, London: Chapman & Hall, 1971 More Fortran programs for economists, Cambridge University Press, 1972 GEM: a general econometric matrix program, Cambridge University Press, 1976 Dynamic regression: theory and algorithms (co-author with M. H. Pesaran), Halsted Press, 1980