The 'Accidental Activist' Who Changed the Face of Mathematics

Throughout her 60-year career, Lenore Blum has developed new perspectives on logic and computation while championing women in mathematics and computer science. Now consciousness is on her mind.

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After many years studying mathematics and computer science, and helping other women do so, Lenore Blum is turning her attention to consciousness.

Rachel Bujalski for Quanta Magazine

Ben Brubaker
Staff Writer

January 3, 2024

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.

“I had never wanted to think of myself as a woman mathematician,” she said. “But I started realizing I had a role to play.”

Her personal life, too, has led her to unexpected places. Born in New York City in 1942, Blum moved to Caracas, Venezuela, at the age of 9 when her father went into business with a relative. There she met Manuel Blum, who would become her husband of 62 years and a pioneering computer scientist himself. In Caracas, Blum also discovered the other great love of her life, mathematics.

After overcoming many obstacles, she made her way to graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There, she specialized in a branch of logic called model theory, which analyzes the common features of different mathematical theories derived from the same underlying assumptions. Blum received her doctorate at age 25 for developing a new way to apply this high-level perspective to mathematical structures called algebraic field theories.

Upon graduating, Blum received a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship, but she soon found the path to a traditional academic career closed off to female mathematicians. That’s when she first got involved in advocacy. She played a leading role in founding the Association for Women in Mathematics and went on to establish many influential programs for supporting women students.

More:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-accidental-activist-who-changed-the-face-of-mathematics-20240103/