Ubiratàn D'Ambrosio

Ubiratan D' Ambrósio ( born December 8, 1932 in São Paulo) is a Brazilian historian of mathematics and mathematics educator.

Life

D' Ambrósio was awarded his doctorate in 1963 in mathematics at the University of São Paulo. Until his retirement in 1993 he was a professor at the State University of Campinas ( UNICAMP ). 1972-1980 he was the Director of The Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and computer science and 1982-1990 Pro- Rector (Vice President ) of the University. 1968 to 1970 he was at the State University of New York at Buffalo. 1970 and 1978 he taught at the University of Education in Bamako in Mali as part of a UNESCO program.

He is regarded since the late 1970s as one of the founders and proponent of ethno - mathematics, the study of ethnological aspects of mathematics. Here he also deals specifically with the history of mathematics as part of the colonization process.

D' Ambrósio is the founder of the Brazilian Society for History of Mathematics and the International Group of Ethnomathematicians.

Writings

• Ethno Mathematics. Challenging Eurocentrism, in Arthur B. Powell, Marilyn Frankenstein (Eds. ): Mathematics Education, eds. Arthur B. Powell and Marilyn Frankenstein, State University of New York Press, Albany 1997, p 13-24.
• Historiographical Proposal for Non- Western Mathematics, Helaine Selin in (Editor): Mathematics Across Cultures. The History of Non- Western Mathematics, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 2000, pp. 79-92.
• A Matemática na época the grandes navegações e Início because colonização, Revista Brasileira de História da Matemática, Volume 1, 2001, pp. 3-20.
• Etnomatematica, Pitagora Editrice, Bologna, 2002 ( Italian).

Awards

In 2001 he was awarded the Kenneth O. May Prize.