Hel Braun

When Ellen Eischen, von Neumann Fellow (2024–25) in the School of Mathematics, followed a stray thread of “lost math” into the Institute’s Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center, she uncovered the story of Hel Braun—and a mid-century perspective that still has consequences for research today. Eischen's investigations show what mathematics can forfeit when it treats its truths as untouched by the human, institutional, and political realities that shape them.

Ellen Eischen, von Neumann Fellow in the School of Mathematics (2024–25), shares her journey of discovery through the Institute for Advanced Study's archives, uncovering the story of Hel Braun, Member (1947–48) in the School, a significant yet overlooked pioneer in number theory.