Thyrsa Frazier Svager

Thyrsa Anne Frazier Svager (June 16, 1930 – July 23, 1999) was an American academic who was the first African-American woman to earn a PhD in mathematics from Ohio State University. She was also the tenth African-American woman in the United States to earn this degree. Born in Ohio, she graduated from high school at the age of 16, going to Antioch College in Ohio and then doing her postgraduate degrees at Ohio State University. Her mother, Elizabeth Anne Frazier, taught speech at Central State University (CSU), a historically black university in Wilberforce, Ohio. He was a member of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, holding the position of Provence Polemarch. Frazier Svager had three sisters, Gail, Constance and Jane, and a brother, William Lafayette. Frazier Svager was one of only four black students at Antioch: one of the others was Coretta Scott King, with whom she was friends.

She gained a Bachelor of Arts degree from Antioch in 1951, going on to gain a master's (1952) and PhD from Ohio State University (OSU) in Columbus in 1965, where Paul Reichelderfer was her doctoral advisor. Her dissertation was titled "On the product of absolutely continuous transformations of measure spaces".

Career Frazier Svager worked for a year at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, before teaching at Texas Southern University in Houston. She was awarded tenure in 1970. She was also a member of Beta Kappa Chi, the National Association of Mathematicians, and the Mathematical Association of America, and was involved with Jack and Jill of America. and Essential Mathematics for College Freshmen (1976).

Personal life While on the CSU faculty, Frazier met Aleksandar Svager, a Holocaust survivor from Yugoslavia and physics professor at CSU.

Thyrsa Frazier Svager died on July 23, 1999.

Philanthropy Both university professors with a strong commitment to furthering education opportunities, the Svagers lived on one income, investing the other to build a scholarship fund. After her death, her husband established the Thyrsa Frazier Svager Fund at the Dayton Foundation, for African-American women who major in mathematics at one of six universities, with a legacy contribution planned.

Honors Frazier Svager was honored with an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by CSU on her retirement, and she was inducted into the Hall of Fame in Greene County, Ohio.