She went to Hyde Park High School and then, from 1890 to 1894, to Wellesley College where she graduated in Greek and mathematics.
[2][1] After four years as a high school teacher in suburban Boston,[1] Vivian started post-graduate study at the University of Pennsylvania, where she took a PhD in mathematics in 1901 with a thesis on "Poles of a Right Line with Respect to a Curve of the Order n".
In 1906 she went to teach at the American College for Girls in Istanbul, Turkey, where for two years she was the acting president.
In 1929, after a year in Vassalboro, Maine, she became a mathematics professor and dean of women at Hartwick College of Oneonta, New York.
From 1931 to 1935 she was a mathematics teacher and dean of girls at Rye Public High School in New York.