All Quotes

"Just as a doula is a trained companion who supports another individual through a significant health related experience, such as childbirth"

"My lane is being “the career doula,” helping women navigate the significant impact of childbirth on their professional careers."

"I have key global pillars which have helped me make a significant social impact."

"I provide analysis and author content on eliminating racial disparities in maternal health."

"I’ve been fortunate to work on the maternal initiatives of Vice President Kamala Harris."

"Most people have the will to win, few have the will to prepare to win."

"The will to win is not nearly as important as the will to prepare to win.Everyone wants to win but not everyone wants to prepare to win. preparing to win is where the determination that you will win, is made. Once the game or test or project is underway, it is too late to prepare to win. The actual game, test or projetc is just the end of a long process of getting ready, in which the outcome was really determined. So if you want to win, you must want to prepare to win. Once you prepare to win, winning is almost anti climatic."

"The key is not the will to win. Everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important."

"When my time on earth is gone, and my activities here are passed, I want they bury me upside down, and my critics can kiss my ass!”"

"In order to achieve positive results, one must work for them, not hope for them."

"The will to win is not nearly as important as the will to prepare to win"

"I don't believe in luck, I believe in preparation."

"Mental toughness is to physical as four is to one."

"It all started at the age of 11, introduced me to his coworkers and I noticed a set of blue doors. When I tried to open the door my dad told me I couldn’t go behind them because I wasn’t an employee and behind those doors were men and they were called ‘transportation designers. They designed every car that you saw going up the road."

"“I was so intrigued in hearing that, I decided that I wanted to become a car designer and I wanted to work at Ford designing cars"

"I was attending Keidan Elementary School and we would have ‘show and tell.’ I bought my car made out of clay and I would draw pictures of cars and such but it was my male teacher who told me that because I was a girl, I couldn’t design cars."

"He didn’t know my father was my big mentor. He introduced me to this world and I was being mentored from all angles.”"

"From the time I was hired on Oct. 24, 1983 until I was let go in 2008, I was largely the only female car designer at the company. I was doing all this work but I was not getting promoted. I was watching Ford hire male designers and seeing them get promoted. They even started hiring female designers that were getting promoted before me,”"

"“I knew I had to come up with something different. So I said, ‘Okay, I’m gonna start thinking about females and how they design things and take into account things women would want in a car."

"“If I’m on this project, I will make sure it is designed with women in mind. So all the features were catered to a more broad audience. It was still going to stay a muscle car but it’s just going to have more of a soft touch"

"I asked her] if she really thought colored women would be allowed to vote if the ballot privilege was conferred on them, as it is to the colored men of the South. She assured me that if it were made the law that women might vote, the right would not be denied them"

"I am American. I am Black. And I am proud that I’m Black"

"It's a tremendous honor to be recognized alongside such powerful women who are using their voices and platforms to lead with purpose."

"This event is a beautiful example of how fashion, influence and service can come together to inspire and ignite lasting change in our communities."

"A really key experience for me was doing mathematics with my next door neighbor when I was 4 or 5. He was really great – a public school teacher – and he would bring math workbooks for me to work on. I remember vividly him telling me to always check my work, and to write my numbers neatly so I could go back and see what I had done. I loved math from then on, and his cultivating my interest was very important."

"Having that fun out-of-school experience with math kept me engaged with math in school, even when it wasn’t so interesting. As I continued in elementary, middle, and high school I continued to find math interesting and fun. But I wasn’t sure what I could do with it as an adult, although in hindsight I always liked tutoring and helping my friends with math. My high school homeroom teacher (who taught math) really encouraged me to take AP calculus and consider a math major in college, which I did."

"It’s always refreshing to hear how my work is now being used outside of the government and I am still amazed by the technological advancements navigation has made since the GPS Project began in 1973."

"Exploring the impact of these out-of-school learning and socialization experiences continues to be an important part of my research agenda: I think they are key to developing math interest and persistence. In education research there’s much more attention paid to, for example, the literacy experiences that people have outside of school and how they contribute to competence and engagement with reading and writing."

"So many mathematicians share powerful stories about how they engaged with math beyond school settings and I use those vignettes to describe to teachers and educators and the lay public a different vision for how we can all do mathematics. And I always hope in my talks to reframe math as something interesting and worthwhile for the lay public – instead of something to be dreaded!"

"I’m most proud of my work reframing existing narratives about math excellence. For example, my research exploring the communities and networks of high school students showed that contrary to popular (and largely anecdotal) belief, students are very interested in mathematics and want to learn more of it. And they garner support for their mathematics learning from multiple and sometimes surprising sources."

"And I’m very proud of the historical work I’ve done to highlight people, institutions, and mechanisms for success that should be much more prominent in the narratives we share about the history of mathematics in this country – too often entire segments of our population are missing from these narratives, and I’m proud to have made even a small contribution to righting the historical record (with my book “Beyond Banneker: Black Mathematicians and the Paths to Excellence”)."

"I’d like for everyone to be a “math ambassador”. So many people have terribly negative experiences with math and those experiences can derail them from opportunities. I try in my research, practice, and everyday life to be intentionally invitational: to steer folks who think they don’t have any interest or talent in math to see that mathematics as a discipline is a very big tent. There’s something in it for everyone."

"This is such a big problem that it needs to be discussed from all angles, not just the minorities because this is really an issue created by all. We all participate and hopefully, we can all participate to make it better."

"Getting into mathematics was not anything that I had thought of, but fortunately I had people around me that said ‘here do this’ and then I think I was naive enough, or maybe smart enough, to do what they told me. It has worked out to be a great career and a lot of fun."

"Here in the US, we are still trying to figure out how race and ethnicity will impact STEM, and what the different cultural barriers are. But with my experience living in Mexico and Costa Rica, I am more open to different cultural expectations, norms and understandings. I can go in and out of a situation and understand better where people are coming from and how they may see things completely different from me, just because of where they stand in the world."

"Maths education should go beyond just teaching mathematics, and instead make sure people know how to interact with the world and be maths professionals. Without the professional part, it is very hard to move forward. We have to teach our students from a holistic approach, not just the subject but also meeting them as a person: what do they need in order to navigate different fields like economics, race or gender?"

"My interest began in elementary school with the same math that everyone else my age in Trinidad was doing. My teachers and family encouraged me to do well and pursue math and the sciences. I came to the United States for university and earned a B.S. in mathematics and a minor in computer science from Indiana University in Bloomington, and then a Ph.D. in mathematics and scientific computing from the University of Michigan. The latter was an interdisciplinary degree. I also took graduate classes in aerospace engineering, industrial engineering, and computer science, so it wasn’t your traditional math degree."

"I’ve always liked to see connections to applications and understand how the mathematics is being used. As an undergraduate and graduate student, I spent summers working at companies where I utilized both my mathematics and computer training, which also fed my interests. I enjoy seeing how foundational research comes to market in terms of usability."

"I’ve been engaged with SIAM as a volunteer over the years and have worked with some members of the SIAM staff before. The executive director position is a wonderful new challenge and, going by history, the opportunity does not come up often at all. My interests and experience line up well with what is needed for this role."

"Conferences are valuable for researchers at all levels, but especially for early-career mathematicians who are looking to establish themselves in the community. They provide spaces where attendees can get acquainted, share ideas, network with one another, and expand their understanding of the fields."

"Conferences become more fun once you get to know people, so I’m glad that SIAM hosts “Student Days” at our meetings. We need to continue making the SIAM conference environment very welcoming and inclusive. It can certainly be overwhelming or lonely to go to a strange city and strange hotel and not know anyone. But as you come more often, you begin seeing friends and look forward to meetings."

"It has history to discover, outlets for shopping, good food and a quiet atmosphere."

"I aspired to do something outside of farm work and I knew that having a good education would be the key."

"That motivated me to do well in school so that I could get a scholarship and go to college. I had a great support system and many mentors along the way who kept me motivated."

"I have judged their annual student fashion show and usually publish an editorial piece; review the graduating senior’s portfolio show."

"It never gets too old. I am just so pleased that I was able to make a contribution. When I was working, I never imagined that the GPS would be used in the civilian world. I love seeing all the ways that it can be used and I probably have no idea how vastly used it is."

"The power of fashion has the unique ability to transform identity and culture."

"What really moved me along was what we all witnessed last year, the injustices that were done to the marginalized communities."

"I just felt like this was the time."

"I had the time and this was the time to do it."