Pilar Ribeiro

Pilar Ribeiro (5 October 1911 – 28 March 2011) was a mathematician who was a founder of the Portuguese Mathematical Society (SPM) and also of the Gazeta de Matemática (Mathematics Gazette).

Early life

Maria do Pilar Baptista Ribeiro was born in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon, on 5 October 1911, the daughter of Joaquim Rodrigues Carreira and Luísa Loureiro Peres. She graduated in Mathematics from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon in 1933, at a time when it was still unusual for women to study such a subject. A year later, she married mathematician Hugo Baptista Ribeiro (1910–88), who she had met during the course. The couple shared an opposition to the established Estado Novo dictatorship and participated in activities of the Portuguese Communist Party. After graduating she taught mathematics in Lisbon as well as attending seminars given by the mathematician António Aniceto Monteiro. As a founding member of the Portuguese Mathematical Society, together with Bento de Jesus Caraça, she held the position of First Secretary for the 1941/1942 biennium. She returned to that same position in 1946/1947, when her husband was Secretary-General. The Mathematics Gazette, the Society’s publication, played an important role in the preservation and dissemination of the history of mathematics in Portugal and elsewhere in the 1940s.