Mary Neff

NEFF (MUSKOFF), Mary Frances

Mary Frances (Muskoff) Neff, age 91, died on February 3, 2021 in Atlanta, after a long struggle with Alzheimer's disease and short bout with Covid-19. Mary Frances was born in 1930 in Jacksonville, Florida and was the only child of John and Mary H. Muskoff.

Mary Frances received BS and MS degrees from Purdue University. She later recalled there were only a small number of women at Purdue in 1946 when she was admitted. Mary Frances was a trail blazer; it has been very unusual for a woman to have a successful mathematics career. In 1952 she married John David Neff of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, while the couple worked in the mathematical research department at Bell Telephone Laboratories. Both completed PhD degrees in mathematics from the University of Florida in 1956. After graduation, Mary Frances was the first female faculty member at John Carroll University, an all-male Jesuit school.

The couple moved to Atlanta in 1961, where Mary Frances was a mathematics professor at Emory University and John was a professor at Georgia Tech. While at Emory, Mary Frances mentored numerous undergraduate, master's and doctoral students, many of whom stayed in contact with her after they graduated. In addition, Mary Frances was the program director of the NSF Summer Program for High Ability Secondary School Students that encouraged promising Atlanta high school students to explore mathematics at Emory during the summer. Both John and Mary Frances were actively involved in state and national organizations that promoted the teaching of mathematics.

Mary Frances and John enjoyed travelling all over the world and they traveled until John's death in 1998. Mary Frances will be remembered for her kind and generous spirit. She had no survivors.