Renate Tobies


Renate A. Tobies is a German mathematician and historian of mathematics known for her biographies of Felix Klein and Iris Runge.

Education and career

Tobies grew up in East Germany, and studied mathematics and chemistry at Leipzig University. She completed a doctoral dissertation on the history of chemistry education, Die Entwicklung des allgemeinbildenden Chemieunterrichts auf dem Gebiet der DDR unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der ideologischen Erziehung , there in 1975. After briefly teaching pharmacy, she took a position in Leipzig's Institute for the History of Medicine and Natural Sciences, specializing in the history of mathematics. She completed her habilitation there, and earned a second doctorate in 1986 with a dissertation Die gesellschaftliche Stellung deutscher mathematischer Organisationen und ihre Funktion bei der Veränderung der gesellschaftlichen Wirksamkeit der Mathematik .
The German reunification led to a drastic reduction in the size of the Leipzig institute, and in 1993 Tobies took a Sofja Kowalewskaja Visiting Professorship at the University of Kaiserslautern. After several additional visiting professorships at the Technical University of Braunschweig, University of Göttingen, University of Stuttgart, and University of Linz, she settled at the University of Jena until her retirement.

Books

Tobies is the author or editor of books including:
Tobies became a corresponding member of the International Academy of the History of Science in 2007.