• MATHEMATICIAN
• FIRST person to develop solution methods to describe the motion of unsymmetrical rotating bodies, which would eventually inform both theoretical and applied mechanics
• Won awards from both the French Academy of Sciences and the Swedish Academy of Sciences for her work
• A portion of her PhD thesis served as the foundation for future research regarding partial differential equations theory
• FIRST woman:
  • to be elected a corresponding member of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences​
  • in Europe (and perhaps the world) to receive a doctorate in math
  • to become chair of a European academy of science
• Also wrote short stories, novels, and poetry, often extolling feminism and socialism
• A lunar crater is named after her
• As is often the case with names transliterated from Russian, her name is spelled lots of different ways, even among her own publications: Sophie, Sofia, Sofya, Sonya; Kowalevski, Kovalevskaia, Kovalevsky, Kovalevskaya

Photo by Dahloff of Stockholm (Institut Mittag-Leffler) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Outsmarting Sexism

~ No Russian colleges would allow 18-year-old Sofya to enroll, and it was illegal for unmarried women to leave Russia without their parents' permission. So after her father's refusal to support her wish to attend a foreign university, she entered into a sham marriage with a man who would accompany her across the border and then leave. Her husband ended up staying with her, and they eventually had a daughter together, although accounts differ on whether Sofya was ever happy with the union.
​
~ Even after she left Russia, she applied to schools in Vienna and Germany, but none would accept her. Finally she found a mathematics professor who, although he agreed with the stance of the colleges, reluctantly acquiesced to being her private tutor. She ended up studying with him for four years, and it was this tutor who convinced the University of Gottingen to give her a doctorate degree, even though she was never allowed to attend classes there.

Bibliography: Doyle, Caitlin. Girls Can Do Anything: From Sports to Innovation, Art to Politics, Meet Over 200 Women Who Got There First. Buffalo: Firefly Books, 2016. Print.
Koblitz, Ann Hibner. "Kovalevskaia, Sofia." The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History, Volume 3. Oxford University Press, 2008, 40-41
Smeltzer, Ronald K. “Sophie Kowalevski.” Extraordinary Women in Science & Medicine: Four Centuries of Achievement, The Grolier Club, 2013, 81-85.
Yount, Lisa. A to Z of Women in Science and Math. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1999. Print.

---

Support this organization dedicated to preserving her story & mission:

The Kovalevskaia Fund

Books by this Awesome Woman

Research

Historical Fiction

Meet more Awesome Women like this

Please note that while Awesome Women Library tries to include links only to media from reputable sources, we cannot attest to the quality or content of any media listed on this website. Our mission is to introduce you to these Awesome Women and give you a wide array of resources for learning more. We haven't read everything listed and are not a recommendation site, nor is this meant to be an exhaustive catalog of every book related to this woman -- there's just too much out there! Happy reading!!