A self-proclaimed “torchbearer for matrix theory,” Olga Taussky-Todd made the previously little-known field essential for scientists and mathematicians.

Emmy Noether, a German mathematician, was the world leader in the twentieth-century development of modern “abstract” algebra. Her writing, the students she inspired, and those students’ books wholly changed the form and content of higher algebra throughout the world. She influenced a generation of mathematicians, several of whom borrowed heavily from her work to write the major textbooks of the field.