The Mathematics Genealogy Project (MGP) is an online reference tool for mathematicians from all over the world.  Entries list where and when mathematicians received their degree, the title of their dissertation, the name of their advis0r, and the name of all of the students they then advised.  The names of the advisor and the students can be clicked on, which is a great way to follow the intellectual history of ideas in mathematics forwards and backwards through time.

This is useful for mathematics students who might want to learn more about their advisors or potential advisors (who else they’ve advised, who they were advised by), by historians of mathematics, and by students researching different mathematical concepts.  This tool is great for illustrating the concept of Scholarship as Conversation, from ACRL’s Framework for Information Literacy, as it highlights how mathematicians (and others in related fields) have built upon ideas from mathematicians before them.  Students can click on the students in a MGP entry, to see how ideas and perspectives have changed over time.

The Mathematics Genealogy Project was started in 1996 by mathematician Harry Coonce.  Coonce then worked at Mankato State University in Minnesota. The project moved to North Dakota State University, and is also supported by the Clay Mathematics Institute and the American Mathematical Society. There are over 230,00 entries in the MGP.  MGP is integrated into MathSciNet, where author profile pages link to MGP entries.  

Historian of astronomy Joseph Tenn of Sonoma State University in California is working on a similar project for Astronomy, the Astronomy Genealogy Project (AstroGen).

More information about the Mathematics Genealogy Project can be found in these articles:

• Allyn Jackson. 2007. “A Labor of Love: The Mathematics Genealogy Project.” Notices of the AMS 54 (8): 1002–3.
• Castelvecchi, Davide. 2016. “Majority of Mathematicians Hail from Just 24 Scientific ‘Families.’” Nature News 537 (7618): 20. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2016.20491.
• Colm Mulcahy, and Steven J. Miller. 2017. “The Mathematics Genealogy Project Comes of Age at Twenty-One.” Notices of the AMS 64 (5): 466–70.

Emily Gari, Science & Engineering Librarian, University of Colorado Boulder

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