Judith Roitman

Judith Roitman is a full Professor of Mathematics at the University of Kansas, where she has been since 1976, rising to full professorship after earlier roles at Wellesley College and the Institute for Advanced Study. Her academic journey began with an English Literature degree from Sarah Lawrence College (1966) before transitioning to mathematics at UC Berkeley, earning a Ph.D. in 1974 under Robert Solovay, with research in set-theoretic topology and Boolean algebra.

She has held leadership roles in the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM), serving as its President (1979–1981) and shaping its early structure. Her research spans over 40 papers and a textbook, Introduction to Modern Set Theory (1990), while her work in mathematics education includes co-authoring the NCTM Principles and Standards 2000. She received the 1990 Louise Hay Award for Mathematics Education and was inducted into the AWM Fellows Program in 2018.

Roitman’s career combines research with advocacy: she mentored students, advised on national education policy, and ran teacher workshops for elementary and high school educators. Her non-academic pursuits include poetry (e.g., Slippage, 1999) and Zen Buddhism, co-founding the Kansas Zen Center in 1978.