{{Short description|American mathematician (1956–2023)}} {{Infobox scientist | name = Claudia Alison Spiro | birth_date = {{birth date |1956|03|04}} | death_date = {{death date and age |2023|01|04 |1956|03|04}} | other_names = Claudia Alison Spiro-Silverman | fields = Mathematics | education = {{plainlist| * Caltech (BS, MS) * University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (PhD 1981) }} | thesis_title = The Frequency with Which an Integral-Valued, Prime-Independent, Multiplicative or Additive Function of n Divides a Polynomial Function of n |thesis_url = https://www.proquest.com/docview/303142066 | thesis_year = 1981 | doctoral_advisor = Paul Trevier Bateman | spouse = Robert Silverman | children = 3 }} '''Claudia Alison Spiro''' (March 4, 1956 – January 4, 2023) was an American mathematician who worked primarily in number theory and data science.<ref name=":1">{{cite web |title=Official Obituary of Claudia A. Spiro |url=https://www.stallingsfh.com/obituary/Claudia-Spiro |website=Stallings Funeral Home |access-date=29 July 2025}}</ref> She is known for her work in number theory and for having an Erdős number of 1.
== Early life == Spiro was born on March 4, 1956, to Robert Spiro and Lorraine Shatz. Sprio had a younger brother and younger sister. Her father remarried to in addition to Constance Mobley who gave her a half sister and two half brothers. Spiro grew up in Altadena, California where she enjoyed attending the rose bowl parades. Spiro was taught the musical instaments: the clarinet and the piano. In her childhood she loved mathematics, as early as 5 years old she would do difficult mental arithimetic such as triple digit multiplication problems. She was also a chess player.<ref name=":1" />
== Education == Sprio obtained bachelor's degree and master's degree both in mathematics at Caltech. In 1977, she started her work on her PhD at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she worked with her advisor Paul Trevier Bateman."<ref name=":1"/> On October 15, 1981, she obtained her PhD for which she wrote her dissertation "The Frequency with Which an Integral-Valued, Prime-Independent, Multiplicative or Additive Function of n Divides a Polynomial Function of n.<ref name=":2">{{cite web |title=Claudia Alison Spiro |url=https://www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=27036 |website=Mathematics Genealogy Project |access-date=29 July 2025}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{cite web |title=Doctoral Graduates |url=https://math.illinois.edu/academics/graduate-program/doctoral-graduates |website=Apply Make a gift College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Department of Mathematics |access-date=29 July 2025}}</ref>
== Career == After finishing up the work for her PhD in the summer of 1981, Spiro was accepted the position of George William Hill and Emmy Noether Research Instructor in the mathematics department at SUNY in Buffalo, New York, which started September of that year.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4">{{cite news |title=Personals |url=https://campuspubs.library.caltech.edu/2415/1/1982_10_16_06.pdf |access-date=29 July 2025 |work=CALTECH NEWS |volume=16 |issue=6 |date=October 1982}}</ref>
In 2006, Spiro started working at University of Phoenix.<ref>{{cite news |title=Anniversaries - 10 years |url=https://multimedia.phoenix.edu/site/humanities-and-sciences/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2016/12/Phoenix-Rising-Dec2016.pdf |access-date=30 July 2025 |work=We Rise Faculty Newsletter |agency=College of Humanities and Sciences |date=December 2016}}</ref> She was hired in 2012 as an as assistant professor at Southern Polytechnic State University, which was consolidated into Kennesaw State University, to assist with their newly created Teacher Education program.<ref>{{cite news |title=Southeastern Section Newsletter |url=https://maasoutheastern.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/fall2012MAASEnewsletter.pdf |access-date=30 July 2025 |agency=MAA Southeastern Section |volume=31 |issue=2 |date=Fall 2012}}</ref>
== Research and contributions == Determining whether the number of divisors of some number n and n+k had infinitely many solutions for some k was solved by Spiro. Spiro proved that for the case d(n)=d(n + 5040), there are infinitely many solutions. Roger Heath-Brown and Chris Pinner built upon her work to show this is true for all integer values of k.<ref>{{cite web |title=B. Divisibility |url=https://www.hugendubel.info/annot/564C42696D677C7C393738303338373230383630327C7C504446.pdf?sq=1 |access-date=30 July 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Erdős |first1=Paul |title=SOME PROBLEMS ON NUMBER THEORY |url=https://users.renyi.hu/~p_erdos/1986-16.pdf |website=The Erdos Project Collected Papers of Paul Erdõs |access-date=30 July 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Guy |first1=Richard K. |title=Unsolved Problems in Number Theory |date=2004 |volume=1 |doi=10.1007/978-0-387-26677-0 |access-date=3 October 2025 |url=https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-0-387-26677-0}}</ref>
From 1991 to 1996 she was a reviewer of 27 papers in number theory for the journal Math Reviews.<ref>{{cite web |title=Spiro, Claudia A. |url=https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet/author?authorId=165635 |website=mathscinet |access-date=30 July 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=PERSONALS |url=https://campuspubs.library.caltech.edu/2452/1/1993_10_11_27_05.pdf |access-date=30 July 2025 |work=CALTECH NEWS |volume=27 |issue=5 |date=October 1993}}</ref>
== Awards and honors == She is one of the few women to have an Erdős Number of 1.<ref name=":5">{{cite web |title=Who's Important? A Tale from Wikipedia |url=https://medium.com/q-e-d/whos-important-a-tale-from-wikipedia-a370dc6ef078 |website=Medium |access-date=30 July 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Erdos0d |url=https://sites.google.com/oakland.edu/grossman/home/the-erdoes-number-project/the-erdoes-number-project-data-files/erdos0d?authuser=0 |website=The Erdös Number Project |access-date=30 July 2025}}</ref>
== Personal life == Spiro married Robert Silverman and had three children: Joel, Sarah, and Isaac. She was also an active member in her church, going on missions and leading Bible studies.<ref name=":1"/>
== Death and legacy == Spiro died of cancer on January 4, 2023.<ref name=":1" />
== Selected publications == *{{cite journal |last1=Spiro |first1=Claudia A |title=Additive uniqueness sets for arithmetic functions |journal=Journal of Number Theory |date=October 1992 |volume=42 |issue=2 |pages=232–246 |doi=10.1016/0022-314X(92)90022-H |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0022314X9290022H?via%3Dihub |access-date=31 July 2025|url-access=subscription }} *{{cite journal |last1=Erdös |first1=Paul|author1-link=Paul Erdős |last2=Granville |first2=Andrew|author2-link=Andrew Granville |last3=Pomerance |first3=Carl |author3-link=Carl Pomerance|last4=Spiro |first4=Claudia |title=On the Normal Behavior of the Iterates Of some Arithmetic Functions |journal=Analytic Number Theory |date=1990 |volume=85 |pages=165–204 |doi=10.1007/978-1-4612-3464-7_13 |url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4612-3464-7_13#citeas |access-date=31 July 2025|url-access=subscription }}
== References==
<references />
== External links== * {{MathGenealogy|27036}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Spiro, Claudia Alison}} Category:1956 births Category:2023 deaths Category:University at Buffalo faculty Category:Kennesaw State University faculty Category:University of Phoenix faculty Category:20th-century American women mathematicians Category:20th-century American mathematicians Category:21st-century American women mathematicians Category:21st-century American mathematicians Category:California Institute of Technology alumni Category:University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni