Person: Burton, Leone Minna Gold
Leone Burton became a leading British expert in mathematical education. She did pioneering work on equity and gender issues in mathematics education.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- They settled in Sydney where Leone was born.
- Leone attended all-girl schools in Australia, both primary and secondary, and in these schools she was taught exclusively by female teachers.
- From San Francisco, Leone travelled across the United States, ending up eventually in New York.
- To earn some money to help finance her travels, Leone gave talks about Australia.
- Levy had been Head of the Mathematics and Mechanics Department of Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, but had retired in 1955, a few years before Leone came to London.
- His wife, Marion Aitken Fraser, was an "upright Scottish Protestant" and Leone quickly became very fond of her.
- In an environment where there were lots of ideas, yet one in which she had time to think about her own future, Leone decided that she wanted to return to education.
- Up to this time Leone had no idea what career she wanted but she now decided that what she wanted to do was to teach.
- Leone nearly changed her area of study but decided not to allow herself to be intimidated.
- While studying at the University of London, Leone lived at 5 Camden Court, Rousden Street, St Pancras, Camden.
- Leone graduated from the University of London with a degree in mathematics in 1963 and, immediately after finishing the course, she flew back to Australia on 13 July 1963, flying from London to Fremantle, Western Australia, on Qantas Empire Airways.
- It merged with the Polytechnic of the South Bank in 1976 and Burton gave her address as the Polytechnic of the South Bank when she published The Teaching of Mathematics to Young Children Using a Problem Solving Approach in 1980.
- However, Burton had left the Polytechnic of the South Bank before the first name change and joined Avery Hill College.
- At Avery Hill College Burton became Head of the Mathematics Department.
- The College became part of Thames Polytechnic in 1985 and Burton continued to work there until 1992 when she joined the University of Birmingham as Professor of Science and Mathematics Education.
- And my highest praise for Leone as a supervisor is that she let me do my own thing in my own way and at my own pace.
- Leone was, for me, the perfect supervisor.
- We must mention Burton's important work for the Open University.
- Another outcome of the Open University collaboration was the best-seller "Thinking Mathematically" (Mason, Burton, and Stacey, 1982).
- Leone also worked on developing mathematical problem-solving in primary and middle schools with colleagues from teacher education colleges, resulting in her rigorous but accessible 1984 book, "Thinking Things Through".
- After she retired in 2001, Burton was made an honorary Chair at King's College London.
- Burton visited many Asian countries where she was given the role of a visiting professor.
- (ii) Leone was an inspiring doctoral supervisor offering encouragement, sound advice, excellent ideas, insightful intelligence and flexibility of thinking.
- (iii) As a scholar, Leone was incisive, passionate, rigorous, principled, intellectually sharp, critical, strong, tough, feisty, daunting and straight to the point.
- The comments left by friends emphasised how much Burton loved music.
Born 14 September 1936, Sydney, Australia. Died 1 December 2007, Cambridge, England.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Origin Australia, 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
