New professor in History of Modern Mathematics

Tinne Hoff Kjeldsen had her bachelor and master studies here at University of Copenhagen. Major in mathematics, minor in physical education. Dissertation advisor was Prof. Christian Berg.

In the early 90'ies she worked as a research scholar at MATH; mathematics teacher at Espergærde High School; visiting scholar at UC Santa Barbara (USA) and Lund University (Sweden); and then as an external lecturer here at MATH.

In 1995 she received a PhD-scholarship at Roskilde University. Her 1999 thesis was called “A Contextualised Mathematical-historical Analysis of Nonlinear Programming: Development and Multiple Discovery”. Advisor was Prof. Anders Madsen.

She then stayed at Roskilde University; in 2000 as Assistant Professor (Department of Science, Systems and Models, NSM); in 2003 Associate Professor and in 2011 Head of IMFUFA, the mathematics and physics group at NSM, Roskilde University.

In 2001 and again in 2006 Tinne received travelling grants supporting a one year research visit at California Institute of Technology, USA. Other Long-term research visits counts University of Toronto, Canada and the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology, Cambridge Massachusetts, USA.

In 2013/2014 she was on leave from Roskilde University working as Associate Professor at the Department of Science Education, University of Copenhagen.

Tinne Hoff Kjeldsen is the author of 98 papers on the history of mathematics and on didactics, including book reviews and occasional pieces. She has achieved international recognition for her research, as is evidenced by her publications in leading journals in the field of history of mathematics, her invitation to contribute to the Oxford Handbook of the History of Mathematics, and by her invitation to conferences in Canada, China, Brazil, USA, Oberwolfach (on several occasions) and, most notably, to speak at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Hyderabad, India, in 2010.

Her work is particularly notable for its insightful analysis of the topics of non-linear programming and the significance of WW II for its development, and the modern theory of convexity. She has examined convexity in the work of Minkowski, which she compared with the earlier and different work of Brunn and traced all the way from the use of convex bodies to a theory of convexity. Her work mixes a careful attention to the mathematics and sensitivity to historiographical issues.

Tinne is a board member of the Danish Mathematical Society, a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society, and a member of the Danish Commission for Mathematics Education.