Mathematics Pioneer Ingrid Daubechies Has More Barriers to Break

Elizabeth Winkler:

Ingrid Daubechies is a woman of formidable firsts: the first tenured female professor of mathematics at Princeton University (1994), the first woman to receive the National Academy of Sciences Award in Mathematics (2000) and the first woman elected president of the International Mathematical Union (2011). But she isn’t particularly interested in planting stakes on mathematical territory or laying claim to laurels.

“I feel successful being part of a bigger whole,” she says. “It’s such a man thing to want your effigy. That…