Rutgers Mathematician Recounts Her Career Trajectory in a Field Not Always Welcoming to Women

The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) will present Amy Cohen (Rutgers University) with the 23rd annual Louise Hay Award at the  2013 Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Diego for her achievements as a teacher, scholar, administrator, and human being. 

Cohen has been awarded the MAA Certificate of Meritorious Service and a Distinguished Teaching Award from the MAA New Jersey section. In a recent article for Rutgers News, she recounts the trials and successes of her career as an educator, dean, and mathematician.

“There was no way for Cohen to predict the impressive and, at times, tumultuous personal and professional trajectory of her life,” wrote  Lisa Intrabartola for Rutgers News. “Yet Cohen, who watched her mother pass up career opportunities to be the rock for her mathematician father, Leon W. Cohen, was sure of one thing. She was going to become more than just ‘an educated housewife.’”

Cohen received her A.B. from Harvard University in 1964 and her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1970. Her mathematical research has focused on the theory of nonlinear partial differential equations with particular emphasis on the Korteweg-de Vries equation. She comes from a family of mathematicians: her father Leon W. Cohen was in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Maryland and her late husband Larry Corwin was another Rutgers mathematician.

The Joint Mathematics Meetings is the largest annual mathematics meeting in the world. The program provides plentiful opportunities to engage with your fellow mathematicians and learn about innovative research in your interest areas, including numerous invited addresses, minicourses, short courses, panel sessions, workshops, paper sessions, posters, exhibits, and more.