The Olga Taussky Todd Celebration of Careers in Mathematics for Women: Part II

From AWM Newsletter, Vol. 30, No. 1, January-February 2000.

Meandering Mathematical Career Paths

This concludes the report begun last issue. Bettye Anne Case, Florida State University, was the section editor for both parts. Dianne P. O'Leary , University of Maryland, in this section amplifies on Case's report in part one.

From a distance, it can appear that all successful mathematicians had simple career paths, striding up the ladder in their chosen university, government laboratory, or industrial environment. In reality, though, many successful careers are far more circuitous than this, involving changes of course either because of changes in the mathematician's priorities or because of external events.

The career of Olga Taussky Todd (1906-1997) is a prime example of this. A saturated job market in Europe, followed by the upheavals of war, caused her to begin her career in a series of temporary positions, sometimes unpaid. Despite this, she thrived in a number of venues ranging from academe to government. Meanwhile, a change in her interests ("I did not look for matrix theory. It somehow looked for me.") led her to deemphasize her number theory research. Yet even after she was well established, nepotism rules denied her the academic rank that she deserved, although she did not let this hinder her teaching or her research.

The Olga Taussky Todd Celebration of Careers in Mathematics for Women highlighted the plethora of employment opportunities for mathematicians outside of the narrow traditional academic track and the wide variety of career paths that are possible. The speakers were chosen to illustrate some of the lesser-known career paths.

Fern Hunt (NIST), who spoke on the daunting task of modeling paint, began her career teaching at Howard University, but later expanded her one-day-a-week consulting job at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (a successor to an agency that employed Taussky Todd) into a full-time career.

Linda Petzold's career (University of California, Santa Barbara) went in the opposite direction. There was an enthusiastic response to her presentation, "Math with an Attitude," which described her career that began with a software development project in a national lab and led from there to an ill-fitting academic job and then to the right match.

Three speakers, Lisa Goldberg (BARRA), Diane Lambert (Bell Laboratories), and Lani Wu (Microsoft), discussed being unexpectedly captured by applications: Goldberg by financial modeling at an investment firm, Lambert in a data mining division, and Wu by a variety of software problems.

Evelyn Boyd Granville gave an inspiring presentation on her journey from being the first black woman to obtain a Ph.D. in mathematics in the United States (Yale, 1949) to contributions in academics, government, and industry, and her continuing active involvement in K-12 mathematics education. She noted that as opportunities for women and minorities have increased, the pool of bright and qualified K-12 teachers has diminished, and this has serious implications for the pipeline of women and minorities interested in mathematics. It is worth visiting http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/granvill.htm to learn more about her story.

Margaret Wright (Bell Laboratories) and Cathleen Morawetz (Courant Institute) both spoke on the transition from marginal academic jobs to mainstream careers, Wright in industry and Morawetz in academia. Both of these women have combined research with a strong commitment to the mathematical community, serving as presidents of two of the major U.S. mathematical societies.

A constant theme of the speakers was, "When I was in graduate school, I never thought I would be doing what I am doing now!" Their advice to their younger colleagues was to keep their minds open and not stay immersed in small problems. Whether they discussed their roles in teaching, research, or service to the community, they seemed to echo the words of Taussky Todd: "But it seems to me that both in the work of others and in my own I look for beauty, and not only for achievement."

Videos of the major presentations at the conference are available for viewing from the MSRI website, http://www.msri.org/, under "videos, MSRI Spring 1999". Proceedings of the conference are planned as the highlight of a volume in preparation by AWM.

Remarks from participants

Lesley Ward, Harvey Mudd College

As part of the Olga Taussky Todd Celebration, 37 young women mathematicians (recent Ph.D.'s and grad-uate students) participated in the conference workshop, along with 25 more senior women mathematicians who acted as mentors. The workshop was an augmented version of the very successful workshops AWM has held at national meetings of the AMS, MAA, and SIAM over the last eleven years. The current workshop was strongly enriched by the context of the three-day conference celebrating women's achievements and potential in mathematics.

The 37 workshop participants presented posters on their research in three lively one-hour poster sessions in the MSRI foyer. We participants did not give formal talks, but were able to explain our work to many interested listeners. These sessions were very well attended, and there was excitement in the air as students in particular enjoyed the wonderful feeling of finding that mathematicians other than themselves and their thesis advisors were interested in their results. Much networking went on during the poster sessions. As some undergraduate students at the conference remarked, it was especially helpful to see many applied mathematics presentations, suggesting new answers to the perennial question: "What can I do with a math degree?"

The mentoring aspect of the workshop was very successful. Pairs of graduate students and recent Ph.D.'s were matched with senior women mathematicians (from academia and industry) for a relaxed lunchtime discussion. The small-group format produced many effective conversations, touching on themes such as writing successful grant proposals, job search techniques, childcare, time management, careers in industry, and negotiating the path towards academic tenure, as well as discussion of the mentees' own research. Throughout the rest of the conference, we continued to see our mentors informally, and many of them appeared as panelists or plenary speakers.

The workshop was enhanced by the conference's ten plenary speakers and three panels. As well as discussing their mathematical work and some aspects of Olga Taussky Todd's life and work, the speakers generously shared their personal experiences and advice. Some of the more striking suggestions from the popular panel
on "Issues and inside information for women in mathematics": (1) Plan your CV: once a year take your CV to your department chair or manager, and ask what should be on it; then take steps accordingly. (2) In addition to grants like the POWRE grant, the AWM Mentoring Travel Grant, the AAUW grants (underuti-lized in mathematics) and the NSF summer grants, there are also many non-research grants, from the NSF and other sources, which often reduce teaching loads. (3) You can make your own research grant; set aside ten percent of your salary for conferences, travel for joint work, books, and other research expenses. In short, the workshop was an energizing and very useful experience, significantly enhanced by the surrounding conference with its more than 100 women mathematicians and its supportive atmosphere.

Claudia Polini, Hope College

In the paragraphs below, I will recount the experiences I shared during the panel "Issues and inside information for women in mathematics" organized by Sylvia Wiegand. I am always thankful for the support I have received from AWM all along my "short" (thus far) career. The Taussky Celebration was an excellent opportunity for me to interact with fellow women in my own and other mathematical areas. It also gave young mathematicians, such as myself, personal time with more established researchers and scientists, and allowed us to discuss different careers in mathematics. I really appreciated the advice and tips of my mentor. Additionally, the conference outlined potential strategies for women in mathematics to improve and to pursue more successfully their careers. Young people were given the chance to present their work at the poster session and get valuable input. In conclusion: Thanks to the AWM for the great organization job and the great opportunity afforded by the Celebration!

After graduating from the University of Padova (Italy) in 1990 I decided that I wanted to do active research in mathematics, more precisely in algebra. The U.S. was the best place where I could achieve that, so I embarked on my "American Adventure."

After five years, I graduated from Rutgers University with a Ph.D. in commutative algebra under the direction of Wolmer Vasconcelos. What next?

Then, three years of postdoc followed; I spent them at Michigan State University. The experience there was extremely profitable and I was reassured that I enjoyed doing research in mathematics. I also liked a lot the way of living here in Michigan, so I actively tried to remain in the area.

I got a tenure-track offer from Hope College. At first, I was reluctant to accept because it is a small, highly selective liberal arts college. I really liked the idea of having closer contact with the students, but I was afraid that a heavy teaching load would result in sacrificing my fairly young research career. I was pleased to discover, though, that Hope College has a strong science division and research is highly valued and strongly supported.

I am currently a co-PI of an already existing REU grant (note that Hope College ranks third in the nation for the number of REU research grants in science), and I also received a research NSF-RUI grant for a period of three years. As part of the latter grant, the College gave me a reduced teaching load; now I teach two courses per semester. Before the last grant was awarded, I still managed to do a good amount of research, even if this meant that I often had to stay in the office late at night.

In this situation, the only disadvantage of a small college is that we do not have many seminars and cannot afford to have a large library. But we are in the era of technology, so if one has a reasonable number of close collaborators most of those disadvantages can be overcome. I also found it very helpful to attend the weekly seminars at Michigan State University and to participate in national and international meetings.

Jennifer Switkes, Claremont Graduate University

The presentations were all very interesting. It was exciting to have the chance to hear dynamic women mathematicians speak about their work. It was also interesting to me to see the wide variety of personalities and interests among the women present. In talking with some of the other graduate students, I discovered that many of us are at this point much more passionate about teaching than about research. I would really have liked to have heard from some of the established mathematicians about their teaching experiences. AWM conferences would be a great place to encourage women graduate students who know they love teaching to pursue this in a career at a four-year college or university!

Click here for complete program including graduate student and recent Ph.D. participants.

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