Minerva Cordero

Minerva Cordero Braña is a Puerto Rican mathematician and a professor of mathematics at the University of Texas at Arlington. She is also the university's Senior Associate Dean for the College of Science, where she is responsible for the advancement of the research mission of the college. President Biden awarded her the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM) on February 8, 2022.

Early life and education Cordero was born in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. Her mother, whose schooling stopped after the fifth grade,

Cordero attended the Universidad de Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras and received her B.S. in Mathematics in 1981. She was granted a National Science Foundation Minority Graduate Fellowship which she used to attend the University of California at Berkeley to obtain her masters in mathematics in 1983. She continued her studies at the University of Iowa, and obtained her Ph.D. in mathematics in 1989 under Norman Johnson.

After earning her Ph.D., Cordero worked as an associate and an assistant professor at Texas Tech University until 2001, when she joined the faculty at the University of Texas at Arlington.

Cordero's most-cited work is A survey of finite semifields. She was the Principal Investigator for a National Science Foundation grant of $2.85 million awarded to the University of Texas at Arlington in 2009 for a project that placed mathematics graduate students in Arlington public schools to enhance teaching and learning in the classrooms and to inspire students to pursue careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).

Awards and honors New Faculty Award, Texas Tech University, 1994 University of Texas Board of Regents' Outstanding Teaching Award, 2009 Featured Biography, SACNAS Biography Project, 2011 Certificate of Meritorious Service, Mathematical Association of America, 2012 Ford Legendary Women (Mujeres Legendarias de Ford), 2016 Great Minds in STEM 2016 HENAAC Award Education Distinction, 2016 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM), 2022 Fellow of the Association for Women in Mathematics in the Class of 2023.