Susan D'Agostino

Last updated

Susan E. D'Agostino is an American mathematician and science writer, an associate editor at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists , and the author of the book How to Free Your Inner Mathematician: Notes on Mathematics and Life (2020). [1] [2]

Contents

Education and career

D'Agostino grew up in New York City. [3] After dropping calculus in high school, [1] she majored in anthropology at Bard College, [4] while working on a dairy farm. At age 25, she set herself a task of earning a mathematics doctorate, beginning with the remedial mathematics missing from her high school education. [1] With the encouragement of mathematician James Henle, she earned a master's degree in mathematics education at Smith College, [4] [5] and then completed her doctorate at Dartmouth College in 2003, with a dissertation in coding theory supervised by Thomas R. Shemanske. [6] While a student, she interviewed coding theory pioneer Vera Pless, and won first place in an essay-writing contest of the Association for Women in Mathematics. [2]

Although not originally intending to go on in academia, [1] she took a position as a faculty member at Southern New Hampshire University, [4] the first person hired there with a mathematics Ph.D. She worked there for nearly ten years, earning tenure and receiving the university's excellence in teaching award. After the university, formerly a regional teaching school, reinvented itself as an online education provider with a massively increased enrollment, she decided to leave academia, becoming a science writer instead. [1]

In 2018, she was named as a recipient of a Taylor/Blakeslee University Fellowship for graduate study in science writing, from the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing, [4] and by 2020, she was studying for a master's degree in science writing from Johns Hopkins University. [2] She completed it in 2021, and in the same year became an associate editor for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. [7] She also has a Master of Fine Arts in nonfiction writing from Southern New Hampshire University. [4]

Writing

D'Agostino has written for " The Atlantic , The Washington Post , Wired , Scientific American , Quanta , BBC Science Focus, Nature , Financial Times , Undark , Atlas Obscura , Discover , Slate , Literary Hub , and the Chronicle of Higher Education , among others". [1]

She is the author of the book How to Free Your Inner Mathematician: Notes on Mathematics and Life (2020). [8] The book received the 2023 Euler Book Prize of the Mathematical Association of America. [3] She was also editor-in-chief of a book about the EDGE program for women in mathematics, A Celebration of the EDGE Program's Impact on the Mathematics Community and Beyond (2019). [1] [9]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Henrich, Allison (December 9, 2021), An Interview with Science Writer Susan D'Agostino, Mathematical Association of America, retrieved 2025-11-30
  2. 1 2 3 Howle, Victoria E.; Lewis, Heather A. (2022), "Telling our stories: the essay contest", in Beery, Janet L.; Greenwald, Sarah J.; Kessel, Cathy (eds.), Fifty years of women in mathematics—reminiscences, history, and visions for the future of AWM, Association for Women in Mathematics Series, vol. 28, Cham: Springer, pp. 241–269, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-82658-1_35, ISBN   978-3-030-82657-4, MR   4454634 ; see p. 246
  3. 1 2 "Euler Book Prize: Susan D'Agostino", MAA Awards and Prizes (PDF), Mathematical Association of America, August 2023, pp. 31–33, retrieved 2025-11-30
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 2018-19 Taylor/Blakeslee Fellows bring varied backgrounds to science writing, Council for the Advancement of Science Writing, May 10, 2018, retrieved 2025-11-30
  5. ↑ D'Agostino, Susan (September 28, 2020), "Alum news: Freeing My Inner Mathematician", Smith Alumnae Quarterly, Smith College, retrieved 2025-11-30
  6. ↑ Susan D'Agostino at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  7. ↑ "Bulletin's Susan D'Agostino earns MA in science writing", Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September 6, 2021, retrieved 2025-11-30
  8. ↑ How to Free Your Inner Mathematician: Notes on Mathematics and Life (Oxford University Press, 2020, ISBN   9780198843597). Reviews:
  9. ↑ A Celebration of the EDGE Program's Impact on the Mathematics Community and Beyond (Springer, 2019, ISBN   978-3-030-19486-4, doi : 10.1007/978-3-030-19486-4)
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.