Early Life
Dusa McDuff was born on October 18, 1945. Although she was born in London, England she spent most of her childhood living in Scotland. Her father was a professor and writers and her mother was an architect. She left her boyfriend and then attended the University of Edinburgh, where she received her bachelor's degree in math in 1967. After receiving her bachelor's degree she solved one of her most important problems, a problems about von Neumann algebras.
Later in Life-Today
Eventually Dusa McDuff took a stab at parenting and had trouble keeping up with her work and staying optimistic. After taking many minor positions in mathematics and even taking new math courses, in 1978 she was offered a position at the State University of New York where she worked her way up to the position of associate professor. During this time period she had another child and finally found her drive and succeeded from there on out. Finally, in 1984 she became a professor at SUNY. She continues to do work for SUNY in mathematics and is still a professor today.
Major Contributions and Works
Dusa McDuff solved a problem in the von Neumann algebras and has made many contributions to symplectic geometry. According to wikipedia.com a von Neumann algebra is a algebra of bounded operators on a Hilbert space which is closed in the weak operator topology, or equivalently, in the strong operator topology and contains the identity operator. McDuff's solutions were in the Type II factors part of the algebra. She proved the existence of an infinite number of type II1 factors. Although this is considered one of her biggest discoveries, she also made many others in the field of sympletic geometry, especially relating to pseudoholomophic curves. She also co wrote two textbooks, Symplectic Topology and J-Holomorphic Curves and Symplectic Topology. On top of these two books, she has written many research papers and will no doubt continue her studies into the future.
