Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya

Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya was a Russian mathematician, mechanician, writer, and publicist. The first woman in the world to become a professor of mathematics and the first woman elected a corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1889). Sofia Kovalevskaya was born in 1850 in Moscow into a noble family and showed remarkable mathematical abilities already in childhood. Her father was a military officer, and her mother was a pianist. After receiving a home education, Sofia sought to obtain higher education, but at that time in Russia it was inaccessible to women.

 

Kovalevskaya took private lessons from leading St. Petersburg professors. To continue her studies abroad she married Vladimir Kovalevsky. In Germany, under the guidance of Karl Weierstrass, she achieved significant success. In 1874 the University of Göttingen awarded her the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. After returning to Russia Kovalevskaya was unable to obtain an academic position and worked as a journalist for some time. In 1883 she was invited to Stockholm University, where she first held the position of privatdozent and later became a professor of mechanics.

In Stockholm Kovalevskaya continued her scientific research. Her work "The Problem of the Rotation of a Solid Body about a Fixed Point" brought her a prestigious prize from the Paris Academy of Sciences. In 1889 she became the first woman corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya died in 1891 in Stockholm.