Featured Mathematician: Etta Zubner Falconer

Education

• Ph.D.: Emory University (Mathematics)

• MS: University of Wisconsin (Mathematics)

• MS: Atlanta University (Computer Science)

• BA: Fisk University

Biography

"My entire career has been devoted to increasing the number of African American women in mathematics and mathematics-related careers." -- Etta Falconer, 1995.

Etta Falconer was born in Tupelo, Mississippi as Etta Zuber, the second of two children (an older sister Alice) born to Dr. Walter A. Zuber, a physician, and Mrs. Zadie L. Montgomery Zuber, a musician who had attended Spelman College. While working at Okolona Junior College, Etta met and married her life partner of more than 35 years, the late Dolan Falconer. From this union came three children: Dolan Falconer, Jr., an engineer, Dr. Alice Falconer Wilson, a physician, and Dr. Walter Falconer, a physician.

Etta Falconer became committed to being a lifelong learner at an early age. She attended public schools in Tupelo, graduating from George Washington High School in 1949. She attended Fisk University, graduating summa sum laude with a major in mathematics and a minor in chemistry (1953). She was also inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. Immediately following graduation from college, she attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison where she earned the MS degree in Mathematics (1954). After a few years of teaching at the junior college/college level, she entered Emory University in Atlanta where her studies culminated in 1969 with a Ph.D. degree in algebra (Quasi groups and Loops); and with a dissertation entitled: "Quasi group Identities Invariant under Isotopy." Additional formal studies include earning a Master's Degree in Computer Science from Atlanta University (1982); attending the University of Illinois-Champaign-Urbana during the summers of 1962-1965 and during the 1964-65 academic year at a National Science Foundation (NSF) Teacher Training Institute; and she attended the University of California-Santa Barbara (summer of 1980) - a workshop on "The Integration of Micro-Computers into the the Undergraduate Mathematics Curriculum." Annually she attends several professional conferences, workshops, meetings, etc., in which she continues to build upon and share her storehouse of vast knowledge in the mathematical sciences. She is recognized by her peers in the profession as being one of the most influential and respected leaders in mathematics and science Education.

Coupled with her lifelong commitment to learning is her lifelong commitment to assisting and providing mathematics and science Education for aspiring youth, especially African American Women. She began her teaching career in 1954 at Okolona Junior College in Okolona, MS where she remained until 1963. During this 1963-64 AY she taught at Howard High School in Chattanooga, TN.