About Joan Birman
Joan Sylvia Lyttle Birman (born May 30, 1927, in New York City) is an American mathematician, specializing in low-dimensional topology. She has made contributions to the study of knots, 3-manifolds, mapping class groups of surfaces, geometric group theory, contact structures and dynamical systems. Birman is research professor emerita at Barnard College, Columbia University, where she has been since 1973. == Family == Her parents were George and Lillian Lyttle, both Jewish immigrants. Her father was from Russia but grew up in Liverpool, England. Her mother was born in New York and her parents were Russian-Polish immigrants. At age 17, George emigrated to the US and became a successful dress manufacturer. He appreciated the opportunities from having a business but he wanted his daughters to focus on education. She has three children, Kenneth Paul Birman, Deborah Birman Shlider, and Carl David Birman. Her late husband, Joseph Birman, was a physicist and a leading advocate for human rights for scientists.
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