Loretta Braxton
Loretta Marion Murray Braxton was an American mathematician who headed the mathematics department at Virginia State University for many years.
Early life and education
Braxton was originally from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. After becoming valedictorian at Atkins [High School (North Carolina)|Atkins High School] in Winston-Salem, she studied mathematics at Virginia Union University, a Historically [black colleges and universities|historically black university] in Richmond, Virginia, and graduated magna cum laude in 1955.With this degree, she returned to Atkins High School as a mathematics teacher, and also taught at the junior high school level in Norfolk, Virginia.
Graduate study and academic career
In 1962, she earned a master's degree in mathematics from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and took a position as instructor of mathematics at Virginia State College, which later became Virginia State University.While continuing at Virginia State, she earned a doctorate of education, specializing in mathematics education, at the University of Virginia in 1973. Her dissertation was The Effects of Instruction in Sentential Logic on the Growth of the Logical Thinking Abilities of Junior High School Students.
She was promoted through the academic ladder at Virginia State, reading full professor, and became chair of the mathematics department from 1977 until 1992, when she retired as Distinguished Professor Emerita.