Hypatia

Hypatia (ca. CE 350–370–March 415) was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher in Roman Egypt who was the first historically noted woman in mathematics. As head of the Platonist school at Alexandria, she also taught philosophy and astronomy. As a Neoplatonist philosopher, she belonged to the mathematic tradition of the Academy of Athens, as represented by Eudoxus of Cnidus; she was of the intellectual school of the 3rd century thinker Plotinus, which encouraged logic and mathematical study in place of empirical enquiry and strongly encouraged law in place of nature.

According to the only contemporary source -- Socrates Scholasticus's Historia Ecclesiastica (or "Ecclesiastical History"), which was written shortly after Hypatia's death in AD 415 -- Hypatia was murdered by a Christian mob after being accused of exacerbating a conflict between two prominent figures in Alexandria: the governor Orestes and the Bishop of Alexandria.