Bernadette Perrin-Riou was born in France in 1955. As a student, she studied under some remarkable teachers and mentors. Beginning in 1978, she held a position as an assistant at Maitre de Conferences. She later became a professor at Universite Pierre et Marie Curie before moving on to take a position at the Universite de Paris in Orsay.
Bernadette Perrin-Riou has received awards and recognition for her commitment in mathematics. She spoke in Zurich in 1994 at the International Congress of Mathematics. In 1999, she received the 1999 Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize. It was awarded because of her theoretical research in various works. These included the p-adic L-functions and the Iwasawa Theory.
When Bernadette Perrin-Riou accepted her 1999 Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize, she made mention of the great influences on her work and on her life. When one reads over a list of the notable people she recognized for helping her achieve greatness in her area of expertise, it’s hard not to notice an obvious. Bernadette Perrin-Riou stands out even among those who mentored her to the level of notoriety that she achieved.
During her speech when she accepted the 1999 Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize, she admitted to being surprised that her work had created such a stir. She made mention of her further surprise, if not disappointment, at the number of females that were in her son’s science class at the time of her acceptance speech. At that time, only about thirty-three percent of the class was occupied by female students.
While Bernadette Perrin-Riou admitted to having an "intimate" relationship with mathematics, many others noticed and observed her profound love for her career in mathematics. She will go down in history as a name to remember and a woman to admire in the study of mathematics.
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