Janis Oldham
Janis Marie Oldham (March 31, 1956 – July 14, 2021) was an American mathematician specializing in differential geometry and mathematics education and known for her efforts in mentoring mathematics students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Early life and education Oldham was African American. She was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on March 31, 1956, and graduated from North Central High School (Indianapolis) in 1974. She became an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, majored in mathematics, and graduated with a bachelor of arts in 1978. After going to Purdue University and earning a master's degree in mathematics in 1980, she went to the University of California, Berkeley for doctoral study, completing her Ph.D. in mathematics in 1990. Her dissertation, Connections in Super Principal Fiber Bundles, concerned connections in fiber bundles, mathematical structures used to transport geometric information from one part of a topological space to another. It was supervised by Shoshichi Kobayashi. Career and later life After completing her Ph.D., Davis became an instructor of mathematics at the University of California, Davis and then, in 1992, an assistant professor at North Carolina A&T State University, a historically-black public university. Ten years later, she was still one of only a very small