Janis Oldham
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Janis Marie Oldham (March 31, 1956 – July 14, 2021) was an American mathematician specializing in differential geometry and mathematics education and known for her efforts in mentoring mathematics students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds.[1][2][3]
Oldham was African American.[4] She was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on March 31, 1956,[1][2] and graduated from North Central High School (Indianapolis) in 1974.[2] She became an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, majored in mathematics, and graduated with a bachelor of arts in 1978.
After going to Purdue University and earning a master's degree in mathematics in 1980, she went to the University of California, Berkeley for doctoral study, completing her Ph.D. in mathematics in 1990.[1] Her dissertation, Connections in Super Principal Fiber Bundles, concerned connections in fiber bundles, mathematical structures used to transport geometric information from one part of a topological space to another. It was supervised by Shoshichi Kobayashi.[5]
Career and later life
After completing her Ph.D., Davis became an instructor of mathematics at the University of California, Davis and then, in 1992, an assistant professor at North Carolina A&T State University, a historically-black public university.[1][2][3] Ten years later, she was still one of only a very small number of African American women teaching university-level mathematics in the US.[4] She earned tenure there and remained there for the rest of her career, until retiring shortly before her death. She died on July 14, 2021.[1][2][3]
