Karen Uhlenbeck is Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. She is also Professor Emeritus and was Sid W. Richardson Foundation Regents Chair in Mathematics at the University of Texas, Austin. The second woman ever (after Emmy Noether in 1932) to give a plenary address at the International Congress of Mathematicians, Uhlenbeck has furthered the education of women in mathematics, including the creation of the Program for Women and Mathematics run by the Institute for Advanced Study and Princeton University. In 2019 she became the first woman awarded the Abel Prize for Mathematics by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
Oral History Highlights
What kind of books did your parents keep in the house?
Well, a lot of classics. Ibsen's Place ... Gosh. I would say just a lot of classics. A lot of Modern Library books. There was this special volumes of them put out. I think it was a special effort to bring the classics into the American home or something and the Modern Library editions of things. No, I can't remember too many. My father, when I was in high school, started bringing books home from the library on astrophysics. I remember vividly Fred Hoyle's Frontiers of Astronomy, and I started reading them, and he never talked to me about them, but somehow or other, maybe I picked them up or something. And I started reading science through the fact that my father had brought some books home.