Sofya Kovalevskaya was born in Moscow on January 25^th, 1850. During her childhood her uncle introduced her to math, She had the lecture notes of Mikhail Ostrogradsky on her wall as her wallpaper and she read them a lot and she became interested in integral and differential calculus.

Her father tutored her privately at the age of 15 and would not let her go to university in Russia. Women were not admitted to only men. Sofya was determined and she found a solution. A young student of paleontology, Vladimir Kovalensky who was her husband, her sister Anyita and herself planed to move. They all left Moscow in 1869 and moved to Heidelberg, Germany.

In Heidelberg, Sofya got permission from mathematics professors to study at the university of Heidelberg. After two years she decided to move to Berlin to study with Karl Weierstrass. She studied with him because the university in Berlin would not let women attend class. Karl helped her earn her decorate "sum cumma laude" from The University of Gottingen in 1874. The doctorate today is now called the " Cauch-Kovalevskaya Theorem." The faculty was very impressed and awarded her decorate with out her having to attend any of their university classes.

Sofya and her husband returned to Russia after she earned her decorate but they could not find the jobs that they both desired. She also became pregnant and gave birth to a baby girl. She then began writing fiction. One of her novels Vera Barantzoria won sufficient acclaim and was translated into several languages.

Her husband was in a finical scandle and he was going to get prosecuted so her husband committed suicide in 1883. Sofya and her daughter moved to Berlin. There she became a privatdozent at Stockholm University, and her students paid her not the university.

In 1888 she won an award called "The Prix Bordin" from the French Academie Royale des Sciences for research. It is now called the Kovalevskaya Top Award.

She won a prize from the Swedish Academy of Science in 1889 and she was also appointed to the chair of the university. She was the first woman appointed to the chair at a modern university

She published published ten papers and then sadly she died from pneumonia while was she still young, on February 10^th, 1891 in Stockholm but she had many great accomplishments in math.

The End

By: Julie