Chawne Kimber

Chawne Monique Kimber /ʃɔːn/[1] (born 1971)[2] is an African-American mathematician and quilter,[3] known for expressing her political activism in her quilts.[4][5] She is a professor at Lafayette College, where she heads the department of mathematics.[6]

Chawne Kimber
Born	1971 (age 49–50)
Nationality	American
Title	Professor
Academic background
Alma mater	University of Florida
Doctoral advisor	Jorge Martinez
Academic work
Discipline	Mathematics
Institutions	Lafayette College Wesleyan College

Education and career

Kimber comes from a family of cotton farmers and quilters in Alabama.[5][7] Although she writes that she "always loved math", she began her undergraduate studies at the University of Florida by studying engineering before switching to mathematics because she found it more fulfilling.[8] She earned a master's degree at the University of North Carolina in 1995, as a student of Idris Assani.[9] She returned to the University of Florida for doctoral studies, completing her Ph.D. in 1999. Her dissertation, Prime Ideals in Rings of Continuous Functions, connects abstract algebra with functional analysis and was supervised by Jorge Martinez.[10]

After a term as Van Vleck Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Wesleyan College, she joined Lafayette College as an assistant professor.[9] In mathematics, she is known for incorporating concepts of social justice into her classroom teaching.[8][11] She is now a Professor and head of the Math Department.[12] In 2008, she along with Professor Sharon Jones[13] began the Summer Program to Advance Leadership in STEM at Lafayette. This six-week program where incoming students take college level writing and calculus address along with modules in STEM. Students are those who are identified as leaders from groups typically underrepresented in STEM fields.[14] In 2018, Kimber was one of six recipients of the prestigious Clare Booth Luce Scholarship to attend the HERS (Higher Education Resource Services) Institute.[15]

Quilting

Kimber began quilting in 2005, soon after completing her application for tenure at Lafayette, and her interest in quilting was renewed in 2007 by the death of her father. In 2008 she began creating highly politicized quilts and blogging about them,[7] beginning with a series of quilts inspired by George Carlin's seven dirty words and by racist and sexist graffiti on her college campus.[16][17] Her work has been associated with the "modern Quilting" movement, based on its geometric design and provocative content.[18] Her work includes varied subject matter that raise social issues including the killing of African Americans and sexual assault.[19]

Kimber's quilts are frequently included at quilting shows and museum exhibits of quilting. The Paul Mellon Arts Center put up a show of her works in 2018.[7][20] One of her quilts inspired by the death of Eric Garner won first place at QuiltCon West in 2016,[5] and was included with other pieces by Kimber in a show on "Quilts and Human Rights" at the Pick Museum of Anthropology at Northern Illinois University.[21] As well as quilting, Kimber has also exhibited quilting-inspired works of mathematical origami.[22][23]

References

1. "The Beautiful Mind of Chawne Kimber - MQG Community", community.themodernquiltguild.com
2. Birth year from WorldCat identities, retrieved 2019-09-22
3. Lamb, Evelyn (October 11, 2018), "Math, Quilting and Activism: Mathematician Chawne Kimber shares her favorite theorems and quilts that make a statement", Scientific American
4. Hlohowskyj, Maria (February 2, 2017), "The Colorful, Radical Quilts of Chawne Kimber", Women Arts
5. Gelt, Jessica (February 20, 2016), "These quilts with messages about gun violence and racial injustice issues aim to discomfort", Los Angeles Times
6. Chawne Kimber, Lafayette College, retrieved 2018-10-11
7. Neitz, Katie (Summer 2018), "Beautiful and Powerful: Prof. Chawne Kimber stitches messaging about censorship, social injustice, and racism into layers of colorful cotton", Lafayette Magazine, Lafayette College
8. Lum, Lydia (May 3, 2011), "Scholar Combines Math and Social Justice in the Classroom", Diverse: Issues in Higher Education
9. Williams, Scott W., "Chawne Kimber", Black Women in Mathematics, University at Buffalo, retrieved 2018-10-11
10. Chawne Kimber at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
11. Grose, Ben (October 28, 2013), "Adding Diversity to Curricula, Starting in the Classrooms", The Chronicle of Higher Education
12. Kimber, Chawnee. "Math Department". Lafayette College.
13. "Featuring the summer program to Advance Leadership in STEM @ LAfayette". Lafayette College Center for the Integration of Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship. October 31, 2019.
14. "Advancing Leadership and Social Justice". Lafayette McDonough Report. Winter 2009.
15. "Lafayette STEM Stars". Lafayette College News. Retrieved 2 June 2020.
16. Dampier, Cindy (April 4, 2017), "Uniting politically divided quilters, stitch by stitch", Chicago Tribune
17. May, Rachel (2014), "Chawne Kimber: How Words Matter", Quilting with a Modern Slant: People, Patterns, and Techniques Inspiring the Modern Quilt Community, Storey Publishing, pp. 82–83, ISBN 9781612120638
18. Cox, Meg (May 9, 2013), "'Modern Quilters' Stress Simplicity, Edgy Subjects: Quilting's new-wave movement focuses on provocative material; fury at the 'F' word", The Wall Street Journal
19. Dampier, Cindy (2017-04-04). "Uniting politically divided quilters, stitch by stitch". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 2020-03-08.
20. Bocek, Sasha (January 26, 2018), "Not Your Grandmother's Quilt: Chawne Kimber's Radical Knits", The Choate News
21. "Pick Museum unveils quilt exhibit with a visit from Reverend Jesse L. Jackson Sr.", NIU Today, Northern Illinois University, September 25, 2017
22. "Chawne Kimber and Ethan Berkove: Weaves and Whorls", Mathematical Art Galleries: 2014 Joint Mathematics Meetings, The Bridges Organization, 2014, retrieved 2018-10-11
23. Bruce, Kathy; Okaya, Michiko (2013), Crease, Fold, and Bend (PDF), Lafayette Art Galleries, p. 18

External links

• completely cauchy, Kimber's blog