Person: Ribeiro, Pilar
Pilar Ribeiro was a co-founder of the journal Gazeta de Matemática and co-founder of the Portuguese Mathematical Society, serving as its First Secretary. Along with her husband, the mathematician Hugo Ribeira, she spent 30 years in exile because of her opposition to the authoritarian Estado Novo regime in Portugal.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Pilar graduated from the high school in 1929 and in the same year began her studies of mathematics at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon.
- At the University of Lisbon, Pilar met a brilliant mathematics student, Hugo Baptista Ribeiro (1910-1988) who had been born in Lisbon on 16 May 1910 to parents Mario Baptista Ribeiro and Emília Baptista Ribeiro.
- After graduating, Pilar Ribeiro served an internship to qualify as a mathematics teacher.
- After the internship, Pilar Ribeiro was appointed to teach mathematics at the Secondary School Luís de Camões.
- Ribeiro continued to study mathematics, attending the Analysis Seminar at the University of Lisbon, organised by António Aniceto Monteiro (1907-1980).
- Pilar Ribeiro is perhaps best known today for her work as a founder member of the Portuguese Mathematical Society (Sociedade Portuguesa de Matemática).
- The first moves were the founding of the journal Portugaliae Mathematica in 1937, the Mathematical Seminar in Lisbon in 1938, and the journal Gazeta de Matemática in 1939 of which Pilar Ribeiro was a co-founder.
- On 12 December 1940, the Portuguese Mathematical Society was founded with Pilar Ribeiro as one of the founding members, in fact member number 1.
- The first committee elected to run the Society consisted of Pedro José da Cunha (President), Victor Hugo Duarte Lemos (Vice President), António Aniceto Monteiro (General Secretary), Manuel Zaluar Nunes (Treasurer), Maria Pilar Baptista Ribeiro (First Secretary) and Augusto Sá da Costa (Second Secretary).
- Pilar Ribeiro continued as First Secretary for 1940-41 and was very active in promoting the new Society.
- Hugo Ribeiro undertook research for his Ph.D. in Zurich advised by Paul Bernays and Heinz Hopf and was awarded the degree for his thesis Lattices des groupes abeliens finis Ⓣ(Lattices of finite abelian groups).
- His scholarship was ended by the Institute for High Culture before he had completed his studies, and Pilar worked at the Oberrealscbule in Zurich to support them.
- Hugo Ribeiro was General Secretary of the Society for the same session.
- By 1947 Hugo Ribeiro's position as an academic and well-known active opponent of Salazar's regime put him in serious danger and Hugo and Pilar Ribeiro were forced into exile.
- While still in California, on 25 May 1950, Pilar made an application for American naturalisation.
- It was published as Fundamentos da Geometria Ⓣ(Fundamentals of Geometry) (1951) with Maria do Pilar Ribeiro and José da Silva Paulo as co-translators.
- Hugo and Pilar Ribeiro went to Brazil in June 1960, travelling to the Federal University of Pernambuco at Recife.
- Later, in 1961, they moved to Pennsylvania State University, where Hugo was appointed a Professor of Mathematics and Pilar was an Instructor in Mathematics.
- On 25 April 1974 the Carnation Revolution put an end to the authoritarian regime of Estado Novo in Portugal and Hugo and Pilar Ribeiro were free to return to Portugal.
- From 1976 to 1980, Pilar Ribeiro was a professor at the University of Porto and at its graduate Abel Salazar Biomedical Institute.
- Hugo Ribeiro, who also taught at the University of Porto, died in 1988 and in January 2005 Pilar donated five boxes of his correspondence to the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal.
- Pilar Ribeiro died when only just over six months short of her 100th birthday.
- She was the widow of Professor Hugo Ribeiro, who was a member of the faculty of the Mathematics Department at Penn Sate from 1961 to 1976.
- Pilar also served as an instructor in the Penn State University Mathematics Department.
- Pilar would turn 100 years old on October 5, 2011.
- This led the Ribeiros to the United States in the late 1940's, and eventually to Penn State, a place which they loved very much.
Born 5 October 1911, Lisbon, Portugal. Died 28 March 2011, Alcabideche, Cascais, Portugal.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Origin Portugal, 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
