It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Prof. Dra. Alicia Villar from Uruguay, a former vice-president of IACME-CIAEM, the Interamerican Committee on Mathematics Education, an organization affiliated to ICMI (from 1999 to 2003).

She died on February 4, 2011. She was the founder and first President of SEMUR-Sociedad de Educación Matemática Uruguaya. The president of SEMUR, Prof. Etda Rodríguez, “recalls the good moments in which Alicia did so much for Mathematics Education in our country???. Luis Balbueña, Secretary General of the Iberoamerican Federation of Societies of Mathematics Education, says that Alicia was a woman that put vehemence in all she was doing.

Alicia Villar Icasuriaga had a PhD in Methodology and Didactics of Mathematics and was preparing teachers of Mathematics at the Instituto de Profesores "Artigas" (IPA), Montevideo, Uruguay.

Beyond the vice-presidency of IACME-CIAEM she had an intensive international activity. She was the organizer of the Xth meeting of IACME that took place in 1999 in Maldonado (Urguay), she was a vice-president of the International Committee that organizes the meetings “Didática da Matemática do Cone Sul??? including countries from the south cone of South America that already goes in its 8th edition; she was the main organizer of the first such meeting that took place in Montevideo in the Instituto de Professores "Artigas", on the 24th and 25th of April 1992.

She was a member of the team that organized TSG 18: Problem solving in mathematics education in ICME-10. She was a member of the International Program Committee of the 11th International Conference of The Mathematics Education into the 21st Century Project that is going to take place in September 11–17, 2011 in Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa.

Maria Salett Biembengut (Brasil), a former president of IACME-CIAEM wrote that “My dear Alicia dedicated part of her professional life to Mathematics Education. She was always present in international events and was an intrepid advocate of IACEM-CIEM. We will feel sorrow for her.???

Some of her works include:

Solving mathematical and logical problems with Lewis Carroll, Números, No. 34, 39-45 (1998).

Using Uruguayan architecture to teach geometry, Aust. Math. Teach. 53, No. 2, 24-26 (1997).

Mathematics and the World Soccer Championship. Didactical Module, First International Congress of Ethnomathematics (ICEM), Granada, Spain, 1998.

“An original walk???(through the city of Montevideo), First International Congress of Ethnomathematics (ICEM), Granada, Spain, 1998.

we thank the help of Maria Salett Biembengut in writing this news item