Florence Marie Mears

Florence Marie Mears (May 18, 1896 – December 2, 1995) was a professor of Mathematics at The George Washington University.

Dr. Mears was born in Baltimore, Maryland and attended Baltimore public schools. She received her undergraduate degree in Mathematics at Goucher College, earning a Phi Beta Kappa Key. She received a master's degree from Cornell University in 1924 after completing her thesis on "A Special Function of One Variable." She then went on to achieve her doctorate from Cornell in 1927, completing her thesis on the "Riesz Summability for Double Series" (published in Transactions of the AMS in 1928) with thesis advisor Wallie Abraham Hurwitz.

Mears's first job as a college professor was at the Women’s College of Alabama; she soon left to become an associate professor of mathematics at Pennsylvania State College, and then joined The George Washington University in 1929.

At George Washington University, Dr. Mears was known for her popularity among both her students and fellow faculty members. She was considered by the university’s President as "one of the greatest teachers of mathematics in the entire country." During her first year at The George Washington University, Mears taught as an assistant professor of Mathematics in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. Her office could be found directly on campus at 2033 G Street. At the beginning of her career at GW, Mears was the only woman in the Mathematics department, which included seven other professors. Additionally, it was reported that she was paid substantially less than her male co-workers.

Dr. Mears earned the title of being a master teacher. According to the criteria set by the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, Mears earned this title due to her excellent teaching skills, and her contributions in both research and the Mathematics Department. Among the many classes that she taught were Advanced Calculus, Introduction to Analysis, Introduction to Infinite Series, and Fourier Series and Spherical Harmonics. In 1955, George Washington University awarded her an Alumni Citation for twenty-five years of distinguished service. In 1958, the University of California selected her as one of ten female mathematicians to work on a project studying creativity. In 1962, she became a member of an examining committee, which focused on selecting doctoral dissertations in mathematics for the University of Allahabad in India.

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