WOMEN AND MATHEMATICS

272pp., Paper, 1995 ISBN 0-88385-702-2
List Price: $24.00 MAA Member: $18.50 Catalog # SDM/DMP

She Does Math!
Real Life Problems from Women on the Job

A valuable resource for grades 9 through the first two years of college.

She Does Math! presents the career histories of 38 professional women and math problems written by them. Each history describes how much math the author took in high school and college; how she chose her field of study; and how she ended up in her current job. Each of the women presents a problem she has faced in her job which she solved using mathematics.

Who should have this book?

Your daughter, your grand daughter, your sister, your former math teachers, your students - and young men, too, will want to know how the math they study is applied, and this book will show them.

She Does Math! can be used both as a math text and a career resource. Here are some of the ways in which young people will benefit from using this book...

• By reading the career histories of the women profiled in this book, young people will learn that if they take mathematics courses every year in high school and college they will be able to enter interesting technical fields and earn good salaries.

• Students get practical information about the job market presented in an interesting, innovative way. This will prove especially useful to students who are starting to think seriously about possible career choices.

• Strong female role models are presented. Girls need these role models to help them imagine themselves in good jobs. Girls and boys need these role models to help imagine themselves working professionally with women.

• The problems are interesting and challenging. They demonstrate how good math skills can be applied to real-life problems. Some examples are:
  • What can you learn about ancient people by studying pollen?
    Learn how Archaeologists use mathematics to help them understand the environmental changes that occurred in a North-American village 1000 years ago.

  • How does a fish pathologist give medicine to a large population of fish?
    When do fish get the bends, and what can the fish pathologist do to help?

  Learn how mathematics is used to solve these problems.

Read what others have said about She Does Math!

"Finally - a practical, innovative, well-written book that will also inspire its readers. The wonder is...it's a mathematics text and a biography! The idea of women telling their own career stories, emphasizing the mathematics they use in their jobs is extremely creative. This book makes me wish that I could go through school all over again!"

- Anne L. Bryant, Executive Director, American Association of University Women

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"She Does Math! will undoubtedly appeal both to students who already enjoy math and want to get a view of potential career paths, and also to students who want to better understand the relevance of their math classes to their future careers. It is an absorbing look into the lives of some very inspiring and talented women!"

- Susanne Hupfer and Elisabeth Freeman, Yale University
TAP, The Ada Project

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"This collection is a wonderful confirmation that real women do math. They do math in a surprising variety of careers, fully enjoying the challenge and rewards of solving complex problems. This is a book for young women and men, a book for their teachers and parents, a book that informs about the possibilities that mathematics affords to all. It is also a book that will engage you in real-life mathematics!"

- Doris Schattschneider, Moravian College

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"I enjoyed this book. Its strengths are: it contains a nice variety of careers and applications, the bios are short and contain lots of human interest, and the problems are appealing. As a college teacher, I would use this book in all my spring semester classes."

- Regina Baron Brunner, Cedar Crest College