"Elinor Claire Awan was born in 1933 and grew up in the midst of the Great Depression in Los Angeles. When her parents divorced, she remained with her mother and lived in relatively poor conditions, having to grow their own food in their backyard garden... She recalled that her "mother didn't want me to go to college [she] saw no reason whatsoever to do that." Despite this, she went to University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and graduated in 1954 with a major in political science... "My work was then, and has always been, interdisciplinary. Some universities don't get students started on thinking in an interdisciplinary way, so that's one of the strengths of UCLA.""