Karin Gatermann (1961–2005) was a German mathematician whose research topics included computer algebra, sum-of-squares optimization, toric varieties, and dynamical systems of chemical reactions.^[1][2][3]

Gatermann was born on 18 December 1961,^[1] in Bad Oldesloe. She studied mathematics at the University of Hamburg, earning a diploma in 1986 and completing a Ph.D. in 1990 through the university's Institute for Applied Mathematics.^[4] Her 1989 dissertation, Gruppentheoretische Konstruktion von symmetrischen Kubaturformeln [Group-theoretic construction of symmetric cubature formulas], was supervised by Bodo Werner.^[5]

From 1995 until 2001, Gatermann worked as an assistant lecturer at the Free University of Berlin, earning a habilitation there in 1999.^[4]

She came to the University of Western Ontario ("Western University") in Canada from 2001 to 2002, through the support of an Ontario Research Chair in Computer Algebra. After a year in Germany, supported by a Heisenberg Fellowship of the German Research Foundation, she returned to Western University as an assistant professor in 2004, and was awarded a Tier II Canada Research Chair in late 2004. However, by then she had returned to Germany to be treated for cancer, to which she succumbed on 1 January 2005.^[6]

A colloquium in honor of Gatermann was held in 2006 in Hamburg.^[1][3] In 2009, a special issue of the Journal of Symbolic Computation was dedicated to the memory of Gatermann.^[3]

• Gatermann, Karin (1990), Symbolic solution of polynomial equation systems with symmetry (PDF), Preprint SC 90-3, Konrad-Zuse-Zentrum für Informationstechnik Berlin (ZIB)
• Verschelde, J.; Gatermann, K.; Cools, R. (1996), "Mixed-volume computation by dynamic lifting applied to polynomial system solving", Discrete & Computational Geometry, 16 (1): 69–112, doi:10.1007/BF02711134, MR 1397788, S2CID 35284268, Zbl 0854.68111
• Gatermann, Karin (2000), Computer Algebra Methods for Equivariant Dynamical Systems, Lecture Notes in Mathematics, vol. 1728, Berlin: Springer-Verlag, doi:10.1007/BFb0104059, ISBN 3-540-67161-7, MR 1755001, Zbl 0944.65131
• Gatermann, Karin; Huber, Birkett (2002), "A family of sparse polynomial systems arising in chemical reaction systems", Journal of Symbolic Computation, 33 (3): 275–305, doi:10.1006/jsco.2001.0512, MR 1882230, Zbl 0994.92040 – via ScienceDirect
• Gatermann, Karin; Parrilo, Pablo A. (2004), "Symmetry groups, semidefinite programs, and sums of squares", Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra, 192 (1–3): 95–128, arXiv:math/0211450, doi:10.1016/j.jpaa.2003.12.011, MR 2067190, S2CID 1494550, Zbl 1108.13021 – via ScienceDirect
• Gatermann, Karin; Eiswirth, Markus; Sensse, Anke (2005), "Toric ideals and graph theory to analyze Hopf bifurcations in mass action systems", Journal of Symbolic Computation, 40 (6): 1361–1382, doi:10.1016/j.jsc.2005.07.002, MR 2178092, Zbl 1120.13033 – via ScienceDirect

• Archived home page, Konrad-Zuse-Zentrum für Informationstechnik Berlin (ZIB)
• ORCCA's Tribute to Karin Gatermann 1961 – 2005, Ontario Research Centre for Computer Algebra