, 1942. Sheila Christina Power was born on 15 January 1918 in
Galway, Ireland, the fourth child of Michael Power (1885–1974), who was Professor of Mathematics at
University College Galway (UCG), and Christina Cunniffe. Christina later died in childbirth when Sheila was age 12. She was educated by the Dominican nuns, both in Galway and in Dublin, and was awarded Honours in Mathematics in the
Leaving Certificate Examination, one of only 8 girls to do so in the whole country. After one year attending UCG, she switched to
University College Dublin (UCD), where she obtained a
B.A. in 1938—with First Class Honours in Mathematics, ranking at the top of her class—and an
M.A. the following year. She was subsequently awarded a
National University of Ireland travelling studentship, which enabled her to undertake research at the
University of Edinburgh in Scotland. There, she worked on the stability of
crystal lattices under the supervision of
Max Born, for which she received her
Ph.D. in 1941. Returning to Dublin, she became an assistant lecturer at University College Dublin, and was also one of the first three scholars appointed to the brand new
Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS), in October 1941. While at the DIAS she worked with
Paul Dirac,
Arthur Eddington and
Erwin Schrödinger. She retired from UCD in 1978. She later suffered from
Alzheimer's disease, and eventually had to move into a nursing home, where she spent the last nine years of her life. She died on 27 March 2010 in
Dublin at the age of 92. == Pioneer and role model for women in academia ==