Catherine Shaw (1) (1961–)

Catherine Shaw is the pen name of Leila Schneps, born in Waltham, Massachusetts. She earned a B.A. in mathematics, German language and literature from Radcliffe College/Harvard University in 1983, then went to France for post-graduate studies. She completed a doctorat de troisième cycle in mathematics at Université Paris-Sud XI-Orsay in 1985 and earned a Ph.D. in mathematics in 1990. In 1991, she was awarded a tenured research position at CNRS, the French National Centre for Scientific Research, and is based at the Institut de Mathématiques de Jussieu of Pierre and Marie Curie University, where she specializes in number theory. During the late 1990s, she also had short-term visiting researcher assignments at Harvard University, Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, and MSRI at Berkeley. In addition to her academic publications, including several textbooks on mathematics, she has written articles and a popular book on the use and abuse of mathematics in criminal proceedings, Math on Trial: How Numbers Get Used and Abused in the Courtroom, co-authored with her daughter Coralie Colmez, also a mathematician. She also has produced English-language translations of several French-language books and papers. Under the pseudonym Catherine Shaw, she writes mathematically-themed historical murder mysteries, beginning with The Three Body Problem (2004).