Bella Manel Greenfield

Greenfield, Bella Manel
October 13, 1915 - April 3, 2010
Bella Manel Greenfield, 94, passed peacefully on April 3 in Baltimore, MD. Bella was born in New York City. A pioneering woman in mathematics, she earned her PhD in 1939 from NYU, under the supervision of Richard Courant. Bella moved to Palo Alto in 1948 with her first husband, the late Max Shiffman. She worked for TRW in Hawthorne and at the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica with Richard Bellman, and taught mathematics at the College of Notre Dame in Belmont and at UCLA. In 1958, Bella married Emanuel Kotkin, who passed away in 1981. She married Moses A. Greenfield, professor emeritus in the Department of Radiological Sciences at UCLA, in 1984 and soon after retired to devote herself to family and music as a classical pianist. Bella and Moses were active members of the UCLA community. The Bella Manel Prize for outstanding graduate work by a woman or minority was established at NYU's Courant Institute in 1995.
Bella is survived by her loving husband, Moses Greenfield; children and stepchildren, Bernard and Doris Shiffman, David Shiffman, Richard and Jennifer Greenfield, and Carolyn and Tom Sargent; grandchildren Jonathan and Melissa Shiffman, Daniel Shiffman and Aliki Caloyeras, Nicole and Scott Schwartz, Cari Shiffman, Jennifer Shiffman, Daniel Greenfield, David and Rachel G. Greenfield, Rachel J. Greenfield, Nicholas Kaye, and Jonathan Kaye, and great-grandchildren Elias Shiffman and Mason Schwartz.
Burial services were held at Baltimore Hebrew Cemetery on April 4, and a memorial service was held April 17 in Baltimore. In lieu of flowers, please send contributions to the Bella Manel Prize Fund, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, 251 Mercer Street, New York, NY 10012