Maria Castellani
Maria Castellani
Maria Castellani Maria Castellani

Visiting Professor: 1946-1947
Fulltime: 1946-1961
Chair: 1951-1961







  • Pictures From: UKC Yearbooks 1946-1947, 1947-1948, 1950-1951



  • Before KCU: University of Rome, 1915-16, 1917-19; University of Padua, 1916-17; Teacher in Normal School, 1919-20; Diploma in Actuarial Mathematics, 1921; Actuary in the Cassa Nazionale delle assicurazione sociali, 1921; Dottorein Mathematica, University of Rome, 1923; Italian Scholar in Mathematics 1923-1924 Bryn Mawr; member of the American Mathematical Society in March 1924; spoke at the International Congress of Mathematicians 1928 in Bologna, italy.

  • January 1924, News Bulletin, Italy America Society, No. 28, p.5, in the section "Italian Students in American Universities": "Maria Castellani, doctor of Mathematics and assistant to Professor Castelnuovo of the University of Rome, spoke of the sympathy for Italy and the place Italian science has in Bryn Mawr College, where she hoped an Italian Club would soon be formed and greater activity developed in the study of Italian."

  • January 4, 1932, Middletown Times Herald article (by Lillian Campbell): "To compute statistics about 6,000,000 workers insured against invalidism, old age and tuberculosis, 4,000,000 workers insured against unemployment and 1,000,000 women insured for maternity benefit, is the not inconsiderable task of Dr. Maria Castellani, first woman in Italy to be named chief of an office in a state organization. Dr. Castellanl acceded to these duties when she was recently named chief of the statistical office of the National Insurance Fund of Italy. Figures, such a bugaboo to the average woman, are as simple as A, B, C to Dr. Castellani. In fact, two years ago. in a competition with men of many countries, she won an important post in the International Labor office at Geneva, sheerly through her mathematical proficiency. Dr. Castellani was educated at Italian universities and at Bryn Mawr College, in Bryn Mawr, Pa., U. S. A. She is no stranger to American women, having spoken at the annual convention of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs at Mackinac Island, Michigan, in 1926, and organized in Italy the first national federation of business and professional women on the continent of Europe. Dr. Castellanl now is corresponding secretary of the International Federation of Business and Professional Women."

  • Book by Maria Castellani: Italian Women, Past and Present, 1939, Introduction

  • Excerpts about Maria Castellani From: How Fascism Ruled Women, Italy 1922-1945, Victoria De Grazia, 1992

  • Excerpts about Maria Castellani From: A Place of Light, The Story of a University Presidency, Clarence R. Decker and Mary Bell Decker, 1954:

    p. 204: Our first woman foreign scholar was Dr. Maria Castellani. When she arrived in 1946, she set loose Italian currents atomic in energy. Maria came from the University of Rome as an expert in actuarial mathematics and the calculus of probability. She taught anything in higher mathematics, the higher the better, but was also a feminist. Vice-president of the International Business and Professional Women's Clubs in Europe and a founder of the International Federation of Women's Clubs, she was active in all women's cultural and civic movements. She was recommended to us by the Institute of International Education for a visiting professorship and she remained as a member of the permanent faculty, giving us the double benefits of her scientific scholarship and her lively interest in world affairs.

  • April 22, 1955: Mathematical Association of America - Missouri Section Annual Meeting
    Organized by: Maria Castellani

  • May 30, 1957, Kansas City Star: FORWARD STEP AT K. C. U.
    The creation of two endowed chairs - one in mathematics and the other in sociology - marks a further advance for the University of Kansas City. These are the first professorships at the school to be financed from funds supplied by individual citizens rather than out of the general operating budget. Multiple advantages should flow to the university and thus to the community it serves. The possession of so-called "name" chairs seems to be widely accepted as a sign of academic maturity. It tends to focus special public attention on the occupants of those posts. Both the Lena Haag professorship of mathematics and the Henry J. Haskell professorship of sociology have been filled with scholars of distinction. The mathematician, Dr. Maria Castellani, and the sociologist, Dr. Ernest Manheim, have made international reputations in their respective fields. Their contributions are underscored by the new appointments. Moreover, since they have long been members of the present faculty, the action of the board of trustees has the effect of emphasizing the university's high standards set from the start. The whole faculty stands to benefit, in addition, from the transfer of the salaries involved to endowment and the consequent release of operating funds. In this case, for example, capital is being provided for research grants and more health protection. Finally, the board has started on a path that could lead to other large gifts for a similar purpose. Persons of means who believe that a great faculty is a university's most important single asset should be encouraged by the example of the Haag and Haskell professorships not to think invariably in terms of brick and mortar or scholarships. "Name" chairs, with the field of scholarship preferably left to the discretion of the university authorities, offer an opportunity for living memorials of incalculable value to the intellectual and material life of the community.

  • Dec. 13, 1958, Kansas City Star, by Landon Laird: "Among institutions now exchanging publications with Russia is the University of Kansas City which recently received evidence that it is on the mailing lists of the academies of science of the Ukrainian and Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republics. Dr. Maria Castellani, Haag professor of mathematics and chairman of the department at K. C. U. takes down the names of the catalogues of publications received. Dr. Samson Soloveitchik, emeritus professor of international relations and Russian literature translates the titles. The books from Russia were sent by a member of the academies, Prof. B. V. Gnedenko whom Dr. Castellani met last summer at the International Mathematics Congress in Edinburgh, Scotland. Dr. Gnedenko is one of the great mathematicians in the field of calculus of probabilities, Dr. Castellani said. She asked him to put K. C. U. on the mailing list of the academies. Included among the catalogues from Russia is a 4-year outline of works in physics and mathematics to be published through 1960. Dr. Castellani plans to send Professor Gnedenko listings of various American writings in the academic field of his special interest."

  • Master's (Thesis option) Students at UMKC:
    • 1950 Michael B. Wells
    • 1951 George Bass
    • 1951 Juris Hartmanis
    • 1951 William E. Hartnett
    • 1955 Guy M. Benson
    • 1956 Carl W. Kurz
    • 1956 Frank Mannasmith
    • 1957 Jerry G. Bails
    • 1957 Robert A. Kilgore
    • 1958 Enuenwemba Obi (Nigeria)
      [Hired in Summer 1958 by Bethany College, Lindsborg, KS, as Assistant Professor of Mathematics & Physics.]
    • 1958 Charles E. Roebuck

  • Mathematical Society, from UKC Yearbook 1958-1959:
    Maria Castellani

  • 1959 Mathematics undergraduate Alumnus Robert H. Randolph quotation:

    "The words of Dr. Maria Castellani have been the linchpin of my long and varied career (and life). Dr. Castellani often regaled our small group of Mathematics students with the mantra - 'Mathematics is a way of thinking.' "

  • 1961: After leaving UKC in 1961, Maria moved to Fairleigh Dickinson University, in Teoneck, New Jersey, as Chair of their Mathematics Department until her retirement.