INFORMS Open Forum

In the most recent issue of ORMS Today, Polly Mitchell-Guthrie wrote a fabulous article called "A Tale of Two Paulines: ABCs for Women in the Workplace" about lessons we can learn from Pauli Murray's life (if you haven't read it, I encourage you to go check it out). To celebrate Women's History Month, I'd like to hear about the women who have blazed trails for you. I'll start with a story of a Polly in my own life.

My Grandma Polly was born in 1910. When she was a senior in high school, someone thought that girls might – just might – be smart enough to take trigonometry and gathered a group of girls to test this idea. Grandma Polly was one of them. Even into her 90's, her successfully taking trig in high school remained one of her top life achievements and a story she told every chance she got. Because of girls like her, no one has ever used my gender to doubt any math class I could take.

Grandma Polly died the same week I reported to the US Coast Guard Academy. I graduated four years later having earned a degree in Operations Research and knowing that I wanted to pursue a career in it. I was commissioned as a USCG officer and later earned my MS in OR from Columbia University. None of these achievements would have been possible without the women before me: the first women who were allowed to attend the USCG Academy starting in 1976, Alice T. Jefferson who in 1973 became the first female Coast Guard officer commissioned into regular service, and the first women who graduated from Columbia in 1987.

Who are some of the women who paved the way for you?

------------------------------
Kathryn Walter
Senior Operations Research Analyst
Avista Corp
Alexandria VA
------------------------------

Thank you so much for sharing that incredible story, @Kathryn Walter! Also, long time no see ;)! 

What is it about grandmothers? My own was also very influential for me. She was born the year the Titanic sank, grew up brilliant and beautiful in the orange groves of Southern California, and was ultimately accepted into Stanford University. Unfortunately, she was not able to graduate, leaving early to begin working to help support her younger brother's education. A reflection of the times, his professional prospects were prioritized over hers. 

Fast forward a few years and she would have my mom who would graduate college as well as nursing school and maintained at different times a career in nursing as well as teaching despite traveling with my Marine Corps officer father across the globe. Fast forward a few more years, and she became the very glamorous grandma (or GaGa) to two grand-daughters who would go on to graduate college (and in my sister's case, law school) and have very fulfilling and successful careers (one as the Communications Manager of INFORMS!). 

By the time I was of the age I could have an adult relationship with her, unfortunately her bright beautiful brilliance had been clouded by Alzheimers and Parkinson's and she passed when I was barely a teenager.

Throughout my education and my career journey, I have always been certain she would be so proud of all three of her girls, and that despite the fact she herself could not fulfill the education opportunities she earned and deserved, her legacy is one of female success and empowerment.

And gosh, now I'm crying!

I can't wait to see other amazing stories of influential women who have paved the way for other INFORMS members!

------------------------------
Ashley Kilgore
Manager, Communications
INFORMS
Catonsville MD
------------------------------

Great story, Kathryn! So many women come to mind, but I'll share the story of two I knew as a kid. 

My dad spent 30 years as an intelligence specialist working for the Department of Defense. In 1990, when I was 9, he was offered the opportunity to work for the Science & Technology Command – Europe, and so our family moved to Frankfurt, Germany. His boss at his new job was a woman, Colonel J.C. Terry. The families of STC-EUR (the Army loves an acronym) would often get together for holidays and special occasions. Since we were all an ocean removed from our actual extended families, my dad's colleagues became like substitute aunts and uncles, their children like my cousins. We got to know Colonel Terry well. She was tough lady, and also kind, smart, and generous with her time. It was only later I realized how tough she must have had to be to reach the level that she did. My dad respected her immensely. I always think of her when I hear the stories of women advancing in the military.

During the years we spent in Germany, we didn't live on the army base, but rented half a duplex in a small town outside of Frankfurt. In the other half of the duplex lived another American family, a woman named Dr. Peggie Jelks and her son, who was about my age. Dr. Jelks was from Louisiana, where she'd earned a doctorate while raising her son alone. She'd taken a teaching job with the Department of Defense Dependents' Schools (DODDS, another fun acronym), "to have an adventure" as she always said. Our families became fast friends and often spent weekends taking day trips together. When we kids complained about being dragged away to the Heidelberg castle or on a Rhine river cruise again, she'd put us straight back in line, reminding us how lucky we were to get to see the world this way, when so many other American kids didn't get that chance. 

Although I only spent a few years in the circle of these women, they stick with me for their boldness and sense of possibility.  

------------------------------
Tracy Cahall
Member Engagement Manager
INFORMS
Catonsville MD
------------------------------

Thank you for asking, and thanks for this post. I will take you up on your request to name a few influential women that helped me in my career. I will give you three (but there are plenty of others). In 1977, my family moved from New Jersey to the panhandle of Florida. I was in second grade, and as far as I recall, my brother and I were two of four African-American children in all of K-6 grades at my elementary school.  My teacher, Ms. Bullock, who likely had not had an African-American student in her class, realized my aptitude for mathematics and rather than skip me to the next grade (I was already young for my grade) or stereotype my energy as bad behavior, she challenged me to work in the same classroom, but at a faster pace. This is quite clearly, an added burden for her, but her belief in me set me on a path. 

When I got to high school, I had a very similar experience with Ms. Scruggs. In this case, she had me sit in her classes a year before I was of age. This started in Trigonometry (where I had to walk from the middle school to the high school) and proceeded beyond Calculus to Numerical Methods (yes, my PUBLIC high school used to have a numerical methods course).

Third, throughout all of this, my mother was there as a champion to ensure the school supported me technically and socially by letting me stay with my cohort.

I will conclude by saying that I have had a long list of mentors from graduate school to where I am today, many of whom are women. I will not try to list them for fear of accidentally leaving someone out. 

------------------------------
Mark Lewis
Professor
Cornell University
Ithaca NY
------------------------------

Thank you for sharing your story Kathryn. It is so nice to read all of these amazing stories.

As an elementary school kid, I heard about the story of a girl named Maryam Mirzakhani, who at that time was a high school student and became the first Iranian woman to win a gold medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad. The following year, she became the first Iranian to achieve the full score and to win two gold medals in the International Mathematical Olympiad. She eventually became my role model and I started to follow her life journey. She got her PhD from Harvard and became a professor at Princeton and then Stanford. In 2014, she was awarded the Fields Medal (equivalent to the Nobel Prize in Math) for her outstanding contributions to the dynamics and geometry of Riemann surfaces. She was the first woman in the world who was awarded the Fields Medal. She was diagnosed with cancer in 2013 and passed away on 14 July 2017 at the age of 40. Her contributions to her field are extremely fundamental. Despite all of her achievements, she was  such a humble person. There are a few videos and books about her short life journey (including a few children books, which I read with my little girl), if you are interested to know more about her. She will forever stay a role model for me.

------------------------------
Banafsheh Behzad
Associate Professor
College of Business
California State University, Long Beach
------------------------------