Lenore Blum’s long career has spanned the breadth of mathematics and computer science. She’s done influential work in logic and cryptography. And she formulated an entirely new model of computation. And though she didn’t set out to do so. She’s also devoted a significant chunk of her time to building institutions to help women follow in her footsteps.
When did you first get interested in math
In New York, I had always seen myself as artistic. Then on the first day of fifth grade in Caracas, they Phone Number List were doing long division; I’d been out of school for a year, but I caught on really quickly. Everybody assumed I was super in math, and I loved it. It was like a sea change. I liked the fact that math didn’t depend on people’s opinions, though I realized later that’s not totally true.
How did you end up studying math
During my first year I got an internship at an architecture firm, and BGB Directory that all of the younger people there were drafting other people’s ideas. And the math was all formulaic. Both of those things disillusioned me about studying architecture. I wanted to change to math, but nobody would listen to me. One of the deans even told me to see a psychiatrist.
