Lena Lilian Hill Severance (November 21, 1855 - September 15, 1942) was a female student mathematician at Cornell University, author of a book on equipollences, a world traveller, and an activist for educators.
[5] She was "one of the most brilliant lady students at Cornell during her course"[6] She also studied at the University of Strasbourg, France.
[4][8] On August 19, 1885, Lena Hill married Frank Severance, a college classmate.
In particular, she was a leading force in obtaining passage of the first Civil Service pension law in New York State; legislation sponsored by her to give pensions to normal school teachers was adopted (this work led to the current New York State Teachers Retirement System, which is now one of the 10 largest public pension funds in the United States.[10]).
She also served on the National Educational Committee of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, and was chairman of the New York State Committee of Educational Legislation of the Collegiate Alumnae Organization [9] In 1930, at the age of 75, she revisited her undergraduate thesis and published an expanded version of it in a short book titled The Theory of Equipollences: Method of Analytical Geometry of Sig.