She was born Claudia Natoma Cohen (later changed to Cogan) on January 12, 1917, in Upper Manhattan in New York City and grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
"[1] Thus began a years-long project of assembling, organizing and interpreting a vast amount of little-known material on expressions of mathematics in diverse African cultures, including number words and signs, reckoning of time, games, and architectural and decorative patterns.
Her field work on a trip to East Africa in 1970 was assisted by the photography of her husband Sam and travel guidance from her son Alan, then teaching in Kenya.
[2] Her work was welcomed into the burgeoning field of ethnomathematics, which studies the ways in which mathematical concepts are expressed and used by people in diverse cultures in the course of everyday life.
She also mentored many new scholars and activists in the field of ethnomathematics, always remembering the importance of discovering and recognizing the mathematical accomplishments of groups currently underrepresented, including women.