Person: Warner, Mary Wynne
Mary Warner was a Welsh mathematician who was a pioneer in fuzzy mathematics.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- It was in this in agricultural market town that Sydney had been appointed as headmaster of the grammar school, and this was the town in which Mary spent the next ten years of her life.
- In 1951 Mary Davies entered the University of Oxford to read mathematics.
- During this time he had built up an extremely active research group in algebraic topology and Mary made excellent progress in her research in these stimulating conditions.
- Mary never completed her doctorate under Henry Whitehead's supervision.
- She had become friendly with a history student at Oxford, Gerald Warner, who graduated in 1954 and joined the Diplomatic Service in the Intelligence Branch.
- When he learnt that he was to be posted to China, Mary and Gerry decided to marry.
- Mary Warner now fitted into the role of diplomat's wife, a role which she certainly enjoyed, but she remained a committed mathematician taking every opportunity to continue to pursue her studies.
- The period that the Warners spent in China was one of change.
- Warner now lived in London where she was appointed to an part-time lectureship in mathematics at Bedford College.
- A life on the move saw Warner back in London for a while, where she slotted back into the Bedford College post she had held previously.
- Borsuk led a seminar in which he developed a unique atmosphere of successful international cooperation and Warner was welcomed as a Visiting Research Fellow.
- The effect of this active group on Warner was to make her begin work on a doctoral thesis under the supervision of one of Borsuk's colleagues.
- After two years in Warsaw, Warner spent two further years in Geneva during which time she completed her doctoral dissertation The homology of Cartesian product spaces which she submitted to the Polish Academy of Sciences.
- A successful defence of the thesis, which was examined by Borsuk and Kuratowski, saw Warner complete, fifteen years after she became a research student at Oxford, the task she had set out on.
- In 1968 Warner was back in London where she was appointed as a Lecturer in Mathematics at the City University.
- The City University had agreed to give her leave of absence for two years so on her return to London Warner again took up her post.
- Between 1980 and 1985 Warner wrote 20 papers on tolerance spaces and automata.
- Warner's major contributions saw her become a reader at the City University in 1983, then a professor in 1996.
- Warner's own health had deteriorated and she retired a year early in 1996 but remained active in supervising Ph.D. students and working on research.
- Once when they were giving a diplomatic dinner party in a Geneva restaurant noted for its tartes a la créme, a guest was mocking Welsh poetry, of which Mary Warner was very fond.
Born 22 June 1932, Carmarthen, Wales. Died 1 April 1998, Spain.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Origin Wales, Topology, 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
