The award honors the legacy of Dr. Harriet F. Montague who served as a professor of mathematics at the University of Buffalo for fourty-four years. She was nationally recognized as an educator She was active in community organizations and the Presbyterian Church. Montague died on March 19, 1997, in her Town of Tonawanda home. She was 91.

Montague, a Buffalo native, attended Lafayette High School and earned her bachelor's degree in 1927 at UB. She received her master's degree from UB in 1929 and her doctorate in mathematics from Cornell University in 1935.

She had served as director of the National Science Foundation Institutes for Teachers, and was widely known as an educator. Active in many professional organizations, Montague was a past president of the UB chapter of the American Association of University Professors, and longtime member of the Mathematical Association of America.

Selected publication: 
The method of infinite descent and the method of mathematical induction

Abstract: The purpose of this paper may be found in the following quotation. Whenever an argument can be made to lead to a descending infinitude of natural numbers the hypothesis upon which the argument rests becomes untenable. This method of proof is called the method of infinite descent; .... It would be interesting and valuable to compare this method with the method of mathematical induction.