"The word bubbly that's kind of a corny word but that describes her very well, " said Tasso Kaper, chairman of the mathematics and statistics department at Boston University.

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He has 12 honorary degrees, was awarded the CBE in 1982 and since 1979 has been at Cambridge University's Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, where he is Lucasian Professor of Mathematics -- a post once held by Isaac Newton.

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The department's latest victim is mathematics.

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While studying mathematics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Esteves joined the IT department of investment bank Pactual as an intern in 1989.

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Arne Duncan, releasing a report on the Department of Education's latest examination of how well American children are doing in mathematics, said no one should be satisfied with what it found.

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