Julie Johnson interviewed Pamela Paternoster-Sussman on March 1, 2005, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as part of the Women Who Dared Oral History Project. Paternoster-Sussman shares her upbringing in a blended family, strong Jewish identity, experiences of antisemitism, activism, teaching marginalized students, and her educational pursuits in Cleveland and Cambridge.
Just as Dr. Goldhaber wanted to personally encourage others to study science and math, I too, try to personally invite others in the hope of creating a more fun and welcoming environment.
My accelerated math class has nearly twice as many boys as girls. There are only five of us. I’m no stranger to a good mansplaining, or to feeling like an anomaly in a math bros club. While many interactions in Honors Precalc make me feel like a fish out of water, a comment like “mind your own business” really highlights just how different it is to be a girl in an advanced math class.
Female leaders in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) are few and far between, and Jewish female role models in those fields are even harder to find. Emmy Noether and Martine Rothblatt are superheros whose hard work and intellect propelled them to defy the odds and make contributions to the world that will outlive them.
Over the past 106 years, 48 women have been honored with the Nobel Prize. Amalie Emmy Noether, a German Jewish mathematician who is now known as the “mother of abstract algebra,” is not one of them.
