Person: Benkart, Georgia
Georgia Benkart was an outstanding mathematician who received many honours for her research on Lie algebras and related topics. She served the American Mathematical Society and the Association for Women in Mathematics in severable roles (she was President of the AWM) and was an inaugural fellow of each.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- George Benkart was a heating and air conditioning contractor who was born on 16 July 1906 in Sewickley, Pennsylvania.
- After graduating from Liberty High School, Benkart began her university studies at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.
- We note that Benkart's name appears on the paper as George Benkart, an unfortunate misprint which may be due to an editor who did not expect a woman undergraduate to be writing a mathematics paper.
- Benkart graduated in 1970 with a B.S. summa cum laude and with distinction in mathematics.
- Another impressive aspect of Georgia's course was her beautiful lectures.
- Benkart gave the AMS-MAA Invited Address A tale of two groups.
- Georgia Benkart has been selected to serve in 2000-01 and 2001-02.
- Giving lectures around the country won't be anything new for Georgia.
- Professor Benkart currently serves on the editorial boards of the 'Journal of Algebra' and the 'Korean Mathematical Colloquium'.
- The Joint American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Association of America meeting in January 2005 took place in Atlanta, Georgia and Benkart was an MAA invited speaker giving the talk Square ice is very nice, but can you put a match to it?
- Benkart retired from teaching in 2006 and devoted herself to serving the mathematical community.
- In 2014 Benkart delivered AWM-AMS Noether Lectures Walking on Graphs the Representation Theory Way.
- Other honours given to Benkart include her becoming an inaugural fellow of the American Mathematical Society in 2012, and an inaugural fellow of the Association for Women in Mathematics in 2017.
- More recently, Benkart, Kang and Kashiwara constructed nice crystal bases for general linear Lie superalgberas, a highly nontrivial piece of work.
- we feel that Georgia's contribution to our discipline goes well beyond this astonishing catalogue of research papers, monographs, lectures, and service roles.
- And there are even more mathematicians who were not her co-authors but for whom Georgia's mentoring, advice, and support made it possible for them to achieve much more than they ever expected of themselves.
- Georgia, always humbly and perfectly, serves as a role model and mentor to all.
- Benkart died suddenly at the age of 74.
- And somehow, once Georgia got involved, the problem was solved in less time than expected.
- To be sure, Georgia was profoundly competent and well organized.
- For Georgia, a project was not just about getting it right; it was also about making it beautiful.
Born 30 December 1947, Youngstown, Ohio, USA. Died 29 April 2022, Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Origin Usa, Women
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
- Github:
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- non-Github:
- @J-J-O'Connor
- @E-F-Robertson
References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
