Sofia Kovalevskaya, Russian-Swedish mathematician and physicist (d. 1891) was born on January 15, 1850.

Sofya Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya, born Korvin-Krukovskaya, was a Russian mathematician who made noteworthy contributions to analysis, partial differential equations and mechanics. She was a pioneer for women in mathematics around the world – the first woman to obtain a doctorate in mathematics, the first woman appointed to a full professorship in northern Europe and one of the first women to work for a scientific journal as an editor. According to historian of science Ann Hibner Koblitz, Kovalevskaya was "the greatest known woman scientist before the twentieth century".