[2][3] Born as Annie Louise Laurer, she graduated from Oberlin College in 1959, learned to program computers in a summer job at IBM in Endicott, New York, and traveled to the University of Göttingen to study mathematics as a Fulbright scholar.
With the support of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation,[4] she earned a master's degree from Yale University in 1962.
[1] She published her dissertation, Bisimple ω-semigroups in the locally compact setting, under the name Annie Laurer Alexander.
[5] Although Selden originally intended to be a research mathematician, the job market at the time of her graduation led her to teach abroad, and the experience of teaching mathematics to non-native English speakers led her to become interested in mathematics education.
[1] In 2002, Selden was the winner of the Louise Hay Award of the Association for Women in Mathematics,[5] and the AWM/MAA Falconer Lecturer.