Zoia Ceauşescu

Zoia Ceauşescu (March 1, 1949 – November 20, 2006) was a Romanian mathematician, the daughter of Communist leader Nicolae and his wife, Elena Ceauşescu.

She did her studies at the University of Bucharest. After completing her Ph.D. in mathematics, she worked as a researcher at the Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest. Allegedly, her parents were unhappy with their daughter's choice of doing research in mathematics, so the Institute was disbanded in 1975. She moved on to work for Institutul pentru Creaţie Ştiinţifică şi Tehnică (INCREST, Institute for Scientific and Technical Creativity), where she eventually started and headed a new department of mathematics. [ro icon Toma Roman Jr., [http://www.jurnalul.ro/articol_66776/zoia_ceausescu__eterna___victima_colaterala_.html "Zoia Ceauşescu, eterna 'victima colateralǎ'"] , Jurnalul Naţional, November 22, 2006]

She was married in 1980 to Mircea Opran, an engineer and professor at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest.

During the 1989 revolution, on 24 December 1989 she was arrested for "undermining the Romanian economy" and was released only eight months later, on 18 August 1990. [ro icon Oana Dobre, [http://www.evz.ro/article.php?artid=281429 "Invinsǎ de cancer"] , "Evenimentul Zilei", 22 November 2006] After she was freed, she tried unsuccessfully to return to her former job at INCREST, then gave up and retired. [ro icon Camelia Onciu, [http://www.monitorulsb.ro/cms/site/m_sb/news/sub_povara_numelui_4967.html "Sub povara numelui"] , "Monitorul de Sibiu", 22 November 2006] After the revolution, some newspapers reported that she lived a wild life, having plenty of lovers and being often drunk. ["Wild Life of Ceauşescu's Daughter Bared", "Los Angeles Times", January 10, 1990, page 2]

After her parents were executed, the new government confiscated the house where she and her husband lived (the house was used as proof of allegedly stolen wealth), so she had to live with friends.

Zoia Ceauşescu believed that her parents were not buried in Ghencea Cemetery; she tried to have their remains exhumed, but a military court refused her request. [ro icon Marius Iosef, [http://www.evz.ro/article.php?artid=258099 "Deshumarea soţilor Ceauşescu se rejudecǎ"] , "Evenimentul Zilei", 4 May 2006]

According to Ion Mihai Pacepa, Zoia Ceauşescu was a chain smoker. [ro icon Paula Mihailov Chiciuc, Daniela Sontica, Loreta Popa, Costin Anghel, [http://www.jurnalul.ro/articole/7454/clanul---arborele-genealogic-al-ceausestilor "Clanul - Arborele genealogic al Ceauşeştilor"] ("The Clan - the Ceauşescus' Family Tree"), "Jurnalul Naţional", 22 November 2006.] She died of lung cancer in 2006, at age 57.

elected publications

Zoia Ceauşescu published 22 papers between 1976 and 1988. Some of those are:
*cite journal
author = Ceauşescu, Zoia; Vasilescu, F.-H.
year = 1978
title = Tensor products and the joint spectrum in Hilbert spaces
journal = Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society
volume = 72
issue = 3
pages = 505–508
id = MathSciNet | id = 0509243
url = http://www.jstor.org/view/00029939/di970854/97p03696/0
doi = 10.2307/2042460
format = dead link|date=June 2008 – ^{[http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=author%3A+intitle%3ATensor+products+and+the+joint+spectrum+in+Hilbert+spaces&as_publication=%5B%5BProceedings+of+the+American+Mathematical+Society%5D%5D&as_ylo=1978&as_yhi=1978&btnG=Search Scholar search]}

*cite journal
author = Ceauşescu, Zoia
title = Lifting of a contraction intertwining two isometries
journal = The Michigan Mathematical Journal
volume = 26
issue = 2
year = 1979
pages = 231–241
id = MathSciNet | id = 0532324
url = http://projecteuclid.org/Dienst/UI/1.0/Summarize/euclid.mmj/1029002216
doi = 10.1307/mmj/1029002216

*cite journal
author = Arsene, Gr.; Ceauşescu, Zoia; Constantinescu, T.
title = Schur analysis of some completion problems
journal = Linear Algebra and its Applications
volume = 109
pages = 1–35
year = 1988
id = MathSciNet | id = 0961563
doi = 10.1016/0024-3795(88)90195-4

References