The first woman to earn a doctorate in pure mathematics from the University of Maryland defended her dissertation in 1965. Dagmar R.
Early Education and Migration
Born in Berlin in 1931 to Albert and Margot Kirchner, Henney spent her formative years navigating the disruptions of wartime Europe. Lacking access to formal schooling, she received mathematical instruction from her father at home. At age 10, she passed the admittance exam for the Abitur High School in Hamburg. She moved to the United States at age 21, matriculating at the University of Miami with 63 transferable credits.
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At 24, Henney graduated from the University of Miami with a Bachelor of Science degree, having majored in physics with minors in mathematics and chemistry, alongside a Master of Science in pure mathematics. She later enrolled at the University of Maryland at College Park, where she balanced teaching 18 credits with her doctoral research. Supervised by Professor Gottfried Köthe, she completed her dissertation on set-valued additive functions.
Professional Contributions and Research
As a professor at George Washington University, Henney taught calculus, finite mathematics, and measure and integration. Her research focused on set-valued additive functions and Banach spaces. She authored several works, including Properties of Set Valued Additive Functions and the publication Unsolved Questions in Mathematics. She also served as an adviser to the Pi Mu Epsilon, Sigma Xi, and Phi Beta Kappa chapters.
Fast facts
- Born: 1931, Berlin, Germany
- Died: 2023, Lewes
- Citizenship: Germany, United States
- Education: University of Miami, University of Maryland
- Employer: George Washington University
- Naturalized U.S. Citizen: 1956
Questions readers ask
What subjects did Dagmar R. Henney teach at George Washington University?
She taught calculus, finite mathematics, and measure and integration.
What was the subject of her doctoral dissertation?
Her dissertation was titled The theory of set-valued additive functions defined on base-cones in Banach spaces with values in the collection of compact, convex sets.
Achievements
- Held posts at George Washington University
