Sylvia Wiegand

Sylvia Young was born in Cape Town, South Africa, where her father was Head of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Cape Town. The family moved to Madison, Wisconsin, in 1949 when Laurence Young accepted a position at the University of Wisconsin. Sylvia's interest in mathematics developed at a young age in response to the mathematical puzzles posed by her father. During her junior and senior years at Wisconsin High School she took mathematics courses at the University of Wisconsin. She then entered Bryn Mawr College. During her first year at college she met Roger Wiegand, a senior mathematics major at Princeton University who went on to graduate school at the University of Washington. When she graduated in 1966 after only three years at Bryn Mawr, she and Roger married. Sylvia then spent one year completing a master's degree at Washington while Roger finished his Ph.D. The Wiegands returned to Madison when Roger accepted a position on the mathematics faculty at the University of Wisconsin. Sylvia entered the mathematics graduate program at the university where Mary Ellen Rudin was a mentor to many of the women students. She received her Ph.D. in 1972 with a thesis in commutative algebra entitled "Galois Theory of Essential Expansions of Modules and Vanishing Tensor Powers," written under the supervision of Lawrence Levy. Parts of this work appeared in her first paper which was published in the Canadian Journal of Mathematics in 1972 [Abstract ]. Sylvia Wiegand has an extensive record of service to the mathematics professional community. She has served as an editor for Communications in Algebra and the Rocky Mountain Journal of Mathematics, and as a member of numerous committees of both the Mathematical Association of America and the American Mathematical Society, including the AMS Council (1994-1996). She also served a four-year term on the Executive Board of Directors of the Canadian Math Society (1997-2000). In addition to her successful career as a mathematician, Sylvia Wiegand has for many years been an avid runner for pleasure and in 10K races, marathons, and even ultramarathons. She completed the 1981 Omaha marathon in 3:18, a personal best, and in 1994 finished the 100 mile Leadville ultramarathon in a time of 29 hours, 35 minutes.