August 2, 1902 - October 25, 1997 Picture taken in 1970 at the
time of her election as the first woman president of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science. Mina Rees
was born on August 2, 1902, in Cleveland, Ohio, but she grew up
and attended public school in New York City, where she was the
valedictorian of her class at Hunter College High School. She
then when on to major in mathematics at Hunter College,
graduating summa cum laude in 1923, while also holding a part-
time teaching job for the mathematics department. After
graduation Rees taught at the Hunter College High School while
working on a master's degree at Columbia University. In an
interview for Mathematical People, she says that she heard,
unofficially, that "the Columbia mathematics department was
really not interested in having women candidates for Ph.D's." So
she settled for her M.A. degree in 1925 and accepted a position
as an instructor of mathematics at Hunter College. She still
planned to get her Ph.D., however, so with the