Elaine Koppelman

Koppelman was born on March 28, 1937, in Brooklyn, New York. She had two brothers. At the age of 16, Koppelman graduated from high school. She earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics with a minor in physics from Brooklyn College. Koppelman completed a Master of Arts and an all but dissertation in mathematics at Yale University. For two years, she conducted doctoral research on a mathematical problem before uncovering that an obscure mathematics journal in Poland had already published the solution.^[1]

In 1961, Koppelman was hired as a teacher at Goucher College with the contingency that she complete her thesis. She attempted to do so for 2 years before giving up. At the suggestion of her husband Hans P. Eugster, Koppelman completed a doctorate in the history of science at Johns Hopkins University in 1969.^[1] Her dissertation was titled Calculus of operations: French influence on British mathematics in the first half of the nineteenth century. Koppelman completed the dissertation with her doctoral advisor was Harry Woolf and Carl Benjamin Boyer of Brooklyn College.^[2] Koppelman was the James Beall Professor of Mathematics at Goucher College.^[3] In 1987, she earned a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from Johns Hopkins University. She worked as a field assistant for her husband who was a geologist which took her around the globe. After Eugster's death in 1987, Koppelman volunteered for the Peace Corps and taught data processing in Seychelles. She returned to Goucher where she retired in 2001.^[1]