Dudley Weldon Woodard

Dudley Weldon Woodard (1881–1965) was an African American mathematician and professor, and the second person of African descent to earn a PhD in Mathematics, the first being Elbert Frank Cox, (PhD Cornell, 1925), Woodard's mentor.

Biography

Born in Galveston, Texas, on October 3, 1881, Woodard took an A.B. at Wilberforce University in Ohio (1903), a B.S. (1906) and an M.S. (1907) at the University of Chicago.^[1] Woodward then taught collegiate mathematics in Tuskegee for many years,^[2] until finally he earned his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania (1928).^[3] His doctoral thesis was entitled, On Two-Dimensional Analysis Situs with Special Reference to the Jordan Curve Theorem, and was advised by John R. Kline.^[4][5]

In his lifetime he published three papers, the second, The Characterization of the Closed N-Cell in Fundamenta Mathematicae, 13 (1929), is, according to Scott Williams, Professor of Mathematics at The State University of New York, Buffalo, the first paper published in an accredited mathematics journal by an African American.^[4][6]

Woodard was a respected mathematician, professor and mentor to his students at Howard University in Washington DC, where he had established the graduate mathematics program.^[7] One of his best known students was William Waldron Shieffelin Claytor, who later took his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania (1933), also under Woodard's former advisor, John R. Kline.

Woodard retired in 1947, after having become chairman of the mathematics department. He died in 1965.^{[1][8][9][10][11]}

References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Pioneer African American Mathematicians, University of Pennsylvania University Archives
2. ↑ Charles Waddell Chesnutt (2002). An Exemplary Citizen: Letters of Charles W. Chesnutt, 1906-1932. Stanford University Press. pp. 42–. ISBN 978-0-8047-4508-6.
3. ↑ Vernon L. Farmer; Evelyn Shepherd-Wynn (15 May 2012). Voices of Historical and Contemporary Black American Pioneers [4 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. pp. 33–. ISBN 978-0-313-39225-2.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Dudley W. Woodard, Mathematician of the African Diaspora
5. ↑ Jessie Parkhurst Guzman; Vera Chandler Foster; William Hardin Hughes (1947). Negro year book: a review of events affecting Negro life, 1941-1946. Dept. of Records and Research, Tuskegee Institute.
6. ↑ "February 1922 Meeting". American Mathematical Society.
7. ↑ Erica N. Walker (29 May 2014). Beyond Banneker: Black Mathematicians and the Paths to Excellence. SUNY Press. pp. 115–. ISBN 978-1-4384-5215-9.
8. ↑ Nathaniel Dean (1 January 1997). African Americans in Mathematics: DIMACS Workshop, June 26-28, 1996. American Mathematical Soc. pp. 186–. ISBN 978-0-8218-7079-2.
9. ↑ Virginia K. Newell (June 1980). Black mathematicians and their works. Dorrance. ISBN 978-0-8059-2556-2.
10. ↑ Colin A. Palmer; Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (2006). Encyclopedia of African-American culture and history: the Black experience in the Americas. Macmillan Reference USA. ISBN 978-0-02-865820-9.
11. ↑ Black Scientists in America- Dudley Weldon Woodard