2022年12月8日

作者:Alaina Uricheck ' 23

这是我们关于STEM领域的女性系列的第二个故事.

作为一个孩子， Alathea詹森 always enjoyed playing with patterns, solving puzzles and using logic. So 在逻辑上在美国，数学成了她的爱好. Math was also her father’s best subject and he encouraged her to try as hard as she could. 詹森也看到了其中的规律.

“That’s something a lot of female mathematicians have in common – our dads encouraged us,”詹森, 大学助理教授 数学 浩博体育app的教授说. She also speculates that the solitary nature of 数学 drew her to the field.

“Math has traditionally been a subject where people could be successful working alone, for the simple reason that it doesn’t cost any money to do,她解释道. “你只需要纸和笔. That’s also the reason why there were always a few successful female mathematicians even in past centuries. It’s the kind of thing you can do while sitting sedately in your parlor.”

如今，詹森指导她自己的女学生. “It’s really important to feel a sense of belonging and community, 因为没有这个, students won’t want to finish the major or enter the field professionally, 他们为什么要?”她说。. “That’s what’s so difficult about fields where one group of people is underrepresented. 这是一个自我延续的问题.”

Jensen’s female students are fortunate to have a mentor guiding them, 这是詹森一直没有的. In high school, she described having teachers who supported and encouraged her. Unfortunately, when she went to a big college, she felt she “just kind of disappeared in the crowd.” After college, Jensen taught high school math, where her principal was a role model for her.

“She demonstrated the idea that women can be authoritative, 自信, 有点可怕, 同时也富有同情心和善良,詹森说. “这些事情并不是相互排斥的.”

Currently, 10 out of her 22 advisees are women and 18 of the 35 math majors at SU are women.

然而, not all environments are as welcoming and inclusive as SU, 詹森试图让她的女学生做好准备.

“I try to build up their confidence and help them understand that it’s normal not to be able to do everything perfectly,詹森解释道. “Being aware of what you don’t know is a sign of intelligence. The most important thing is to pay attention and ask questions so that you can pick up the needed skills quickly. If you have confidence in your ability to learn, then you can do anything.”

不容小觑

Despite the progress society has made in making math a more inclusive field for women, Jensen still faces assumptions about her level of expertise and competence.

“Once, a computer programmer I know mentioned that I should learn to program computers,詹森说. “I replied that I had been programming computers since I was 16 and reeled off about a dozen programming languages that I know.

“另一个时间, after a talk I attended on the topic of radio interference, some attendees were speculating about how walkie-talkies work,詹森说. She explained the answer to their question, drawing on personal experiences. “大家都盯着我看了几秒钟，好像我疯了一样, and then continued to discuss how walkie-talkies might possibly work as if my voice was just the sound of the wind in the trees,她解释道.

Jensen thinks the reputation of mathematicians as loners is getting to be less true today.

“There is a lot more collaboration than there used to be,她解释道. “I attended a summer research program this summer where I collaborated with eight other mathematicians all across the country, 我们现在在一起写论文. There are a lot of programs like that to bring people together.”

Excitingly, in those current research collaborations, about half of the members are women.