Celebrating Janet Beery: Convergence Editor, 2009–2019

Janet L. Beery is professor of mathematics at the University of Redlands, where she has taught since 1989. In 1996, she became interested in teaching the history of mathematics and participated in the NSF-sponsored Institute on the History of Mathematics and its Use in Teaching (IHMT). Beery later collaborated with secondary school teachers at IHMT in the creation of two of the eleven teaching units included in the MAA publication Historical Modules for the Teaching and Learning of Mathematics (2005). She also created Mathematics Through Its History, a popular interdisciplinary course at Redlands that she co-teaches with 2–6 mathematics majors per offering. An established researcher in the history of mathematics, Beery specializes in early modern European mathematics history, especially the mathematics of Thomas Harriot (1560–1621). She is co-author (with Jackie Stedall) of the book Thomas Harriot's Doctrine of Triangular Numbers: the ‘Magisteria Magna' (2009).

As editor of Convergence from 2009 to 2019, Beery crafted a well-deserved reputation for excellence among authors and readers alike. In addition to providing invaluable feedback and editorial assistance to its contributors, she was responsible for all journal publicity and production work, from posting new content on the MAA website to maintaining and repairing existing content. From 2013 to 2015, she steered the journal through particularly thorny production problems resulting from an MAA website conversion. Among her many other contributions to Convergence, Beery also co-authored the weekly series Who's That Mathematician? Images from the Paul R. Halmos Photograph Collection in 2012–2013.

In addition to her decade-long leadership of Convergence, Beery has served as the secretary and membership chair for the Association for Women in Mathematics, and she was co-editor of the book Women in Mathematics: Celebrating the Centennial of the Mathematical Association of America (2017). In 2010, she was awarded the Certificate of Meritorious Service by MAA’s Southern California-Nevada Section, which she also served as an officer, first as student chapter coordinator and then as newsletter editor, for over a dozen years.

 MAA Certificate of Meritorious Service Presentation to Janet Beery (with David Bressoud), 2010

Be sure to read Beery’s Convergence article on the early history of formulas for sums of integer powers,

complete with exercises designed to help students develop a deeper understanding of the ideas and methods of each mathematician discussed; solution pages for these exercises are also provided.

• Sums of Powers of Positive Integers

  • Sums of Powers of Positive Integers - Introduction
  • Sums of Powers of Positive Integers - Pythagoras (c. 570-500 BCE), Turkey-Greece-Italy
  • Sums of Powers of Positive Integers - Archimedes (287-212 BCE), Greece-Italy
  • Sums of Powers of Positive Integers - Aryabhata (b. 476), northern India
  • Sums of Powers of Positive Integers - Abu Bakr al-Karaji (d. 1019), Baghdad
  • Sums of Powers of Positive Integers - Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham (965-1039), Egypt
  • Sums of Powers of Positive Integers - Thomas Harriot (c. 1560-1621), England
  • Sums of Powers of Positive Integers - Johann Faulhaber (1580-1635), Germany
  • Sums of Powers of Positive Integers - Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665), France
  • Sums of Powers of Positive Integers - Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), France
  • Sums of Powers of Positive Integers - Jakob Bernoulli (1654-1705), Switzerland
  • Sums of Powers of Positive Integers - Conclusion
  • Sums of Powers of Positive Integers - References

Read  the biographies co-authored by Beery for Who’s That Mathematician.

Use the article's Name Index fo find out which mathematicians are featured in this collection of 343 photographs taken by Paul Halmos in the 1950s through the 1980s.

Learn more about the following books written or edited by Beery:

• Women in Mathematics:Celebrating the Centennial of the Mathematical Association of America (Springer 2018), reviewed by Fernando Q. Gouvêa.
• Thomas Harriot's Doctrine of Triangular Numbers: the 'Magisteria Magna' (European Mathematical Society 2009), reviewed by Fernando Q. Gouvêa.

Learn more about Convergence's history and its other long-term editors on our "Sweet Sixteen" celebration page.