Miriam Leiva
{{short description|Cuban-American mathematician}}
{{about|the Cuban-American mathematics educator|the Cuban journalist|Oscar Espinosa Chepe}}
Miriam Almaguer Leiva is a Cuban-American mathematician and mathematics educator, the first American Hispanic woman to earn a doctorate in mathematics and mathematics education.{{r|ggstem|icarl}} She is the Bonnie Cone Distinguished Professor for Teaching Emerita in the Department of Mathematics at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and the founder of TODOS: Mathematics for All, an organization devoted to advocacy for and encouragement of Latinx students in mathematics.{{r|nctm}} She is also an author of many secondary-school mathematics textbooks.{{r|icarl}}
Education and career
Leiva moved from Cuba to the US as a teenager in the 1950s.{{r|ggstem|icarl}}
She did her undergraduate studies at Guilford College, graduating in 1961,{{r|guilford}}
and was initially denied admission for graduate study in mathematics at the University of North Carolina for being a woman. Nevertheless, she persisted,{{r|ggstem}} and earned a master's degree there in 1966 under the mentorship of Alfred Brauer, with a thesis on Elementary estimates for the least positive primitive root modulo pr.{{r|brauer}}
After finishing her master's degree, she became a secondary school mathematics teacher. Later, she obtained a teaching position at the University of North Carolina, and while teaching there completed her doctorate in mathematics and mathematics education through a distance education program{{r|ggstem}} at Union Institute & University.
Recognition
In 2008, TODOS gave Leiva their Iris Carl Equity and Leadership Award.{{r|icarl}}
In 2013 the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) gave her the inaugural Kay Gilliland Equity Lecture Award for "contributions to equity in mathematics education".{{r|gilliland}}
In 2014 the NCTM gave her the Mathematics Education Trust Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics Education.{{r|nctm}}
References
{{reflist|refs=
{{citation|url=https://ggstem.wordpress.com/2013/02/23/miriam-almaguer-leiva/|first=Katie|last=Leiva|date=February 23, 2013|title=Miriam Almaguer Leiva|work=Grandma Got STEM|accessdate=2018-02-04}}
{{citation|url=https://www.mathedleadership.org/about/awards7.html|title=Kay Gilliland Equity Lecture Award|publisher=National Council of Teachers of Mathematics|accessdate=2018-02-04}}
{{citation|url=http://www.nctm.org/News-and-Calendar/News/NCTM-News-Releases/UNCC-Math-Professor-Honored-with-Lifetime-Achievement-Award/|title=UNCC Math Professor Honored with Lifetime Achievement Award|date=April 15, 2014|publisher=National Council of Teachers of Mathematics|accessdate=2018-02-04}}
}}
External links
- [http://www.todos-math.org/ TODOS: Mathematics for All]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Leiva, Miriam A.}}
Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
Category:Cuban emigrants to the United States
Category:20th-century American mathematicians
Category:21st-century American mathematicians
Category:Mathematics educators
Category:Guilford College alumni
Category:University of North Carolina at Charlotte faculty