Figure timeline
Julia Hall Bowman Robinson was an American mathematician noted for her contributions to the fields of computability theory and computational complexity theory—most notably in decision problems. Her work on Hilbert's tenth problem played a crucial role in its ultimate resolution. Robinson was a 1983 MacArthur Fellow.
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
science · American mathematician (1919–1985) · mathematician · philosopher · university teacher · also Julia Hall Bowman Robinson, Julia Robinson, Julia Bowman, Robinson
Born 8 December 1919 · Died 30 July 1985 · Q452116
28 published statements · 0 followers
See & hear
1 photos
Media from Wikimedia Commons, hotlinked at the source under its own licence — see each file for author and terms.
Live now
Pulling headlines from trusted outlets — this usually takes a few seconds
Checking the wires…
Feed scan
These are live links, not archived citations — they only join the timeline once a collect run verifies and archives them.
Live pulse
Most recent outstanding titles, awards, and quotes
I don't remember exactly what happened, but the end result was that Julia involved herself during those years in the nitty-gritty of Democratic Party politics—she registered voters, stuffed envelopes, rang door- bells in neighborhoods where people expected to be paid for their vote. She even served as Alan Cranston's campaign manager for Contra Costa County when he successfully ran for state controller—his first political office.
Awarded Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1985).
84%WikipediaSource
“I don't remember exactly what happened, but the end result was that Julia involved herself during those years in the nitty-gritty of Democratic Party politics—she registered voters, stuffed envelopes, rang door- bells in neighborhoods where people expected to be paid for their vote. She even served as Alan Cranston's campaign manager for Contra Costa County when he successfully ran for state controller—his first political office.”
Published “Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019” in The Lancet — cited 16,064 times.
Published “Welcome to the Tidyverse” in Journal of Open Source Software — cited 20,667 times.
Published “Integrative genomics viewer” in Nature Biotechnology — cited 14,863 times.
Published “<tt>edgeR</tt> : a Bioconductor package for differential expression analysis of digital gene expression data” in Bioinformatics — cited 39,823 times.
Published “Introducing mothur: Open-Source, Platform-Independent, Community-Supported Software for Describing and Comparing Microbial Communities” in Applied and Environmental Microbiology — cited 19,009 times.
For writing the article "The Autobiography of Julia Robinson"
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Died 1985-07-30.
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Awarded Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1985).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Also became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“One of Julia's last requests was that there be no funeral service and that those wishing to make a gift in her memory contribute to the Alfred Tarski Fund, which she had been instrumental in setting up in honor of her late teacher, friend, and colleague. Modest to the end, she let her character and achievements speak for themselves.”
Robinson was diagnosed with leukemia, and she died in Oakland, California, on July 30, 1985
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Awarded MacArthur Fellows Program (1983).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Career landmark: chairperson (1983–1984).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
I was nominated for the presidency of the American Mathematical Society
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Robinson gave the Noether Lecture of the Association for Women in Mathematics; her lecture was called Functional Equations in Arithmetic
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Was the first female mathematician to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
It was not until 1976 she was offered a full-time professorship position at Berkeley after the department heard of her nomination to the National Academy of Sciences
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
The problem was resolved in the negative; that is, they showed that no such algorithm can exist
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
And were later joined by Hilary Putnam, they then showed that the solutions to a "Goldilocks" equation was key to Hilbert's tenth problem
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Robinson first met Martin Davis, then an instructor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who was trying to show that all sets with listability property were Diophantine in contrast to Robinson's attempt to
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Studied at University of California, Berkeley, Doctor of Philosophy (1939–1949).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Under Alfred Tarski with a dissertation on "Definability and Decision Problems in Arithmetic"
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
As there was a rule that prevented family members from working together in the same department
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Studied at San Diego State University (1936–1939).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Studied at San Diego High School (1936).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Robinson entered San Diego State University at the age of 16
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Born 1919-12-08.
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of Julia's last requests was that there be no funeral service and that those wishing to make a gift in her memory contribute to the Alfred Tarski Fund, which she had been instrumental in setting up in honor of her late teacher, friend, and colleague. Modest to the end, she let her character and achievements speak for themselves.
Connections