Pour-El (Marian) Papers

Marian Pour-El (1928-2009) was born in New York City, New York. She completed her bachelor’s degree in physics at Hunter College (1945), her A.M. in mathematics at Harvard College (1951), and continued her studies in mathematical logic at Harvard to earn her Ph.D. in 1958. She was one of the first and only female students in the Harvard mathematics department, a trend that she encountered throughout her career.

During her Ph.D. studies, Pour-El left Harvard to study under logicians in Berkeley, where she met her future husband, Akiva Pour-El, who was pursuing his doctorate in biochemistry. After receiving her Ph.D., she moved to University Park, Pennsylvania, to begin a post as a professor of mathematics at Pennsylvania State University. Pour-El taught there for the next seven years, except for a one-year sabbatical visiting position at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, from 1962-1964, where she met mathematician Kurt Gödel. She left Pennsylvania State University in 1968 to accept a professorship at the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities, remaining where she remained until her retirement in 2000. From 1969 to 1970, Pour-El was a visiting professor at the University of Bristol in England.

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