Mary Layne Boas (1917–2010) was an American mathematician and physics professor[2] best known as the author of Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences[3] (1966), an undergraduate textbook that was still widely used in college classrooms as of 1999.
[1] She taught physics at DePaul University in Chicago for thirty years, retiring in 1987 to return to Washington.
[3] She established the Mary L. Boas Endowed Scholarship at the University of Washington in 2008 to recognize outstanding academic achievements by female students in physics.
Her son, Harold P. Boas, is also a noted mathematician.
She died on February 17, 2010, at her home near Seattle, Washington.