Nancy Blachman (born 1956 in

Palo Alto, CA Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...

) is an American educator, supporter of

recreational mathematics Recreational mathematics is mathematics carried out for recreation (entertainment) rather than as a strictly research-and-application-based professional activity or as a part of a student's formal education. Although it is not necessarily limited ...

and mathematical

outreach Outreach is the activity of providing services to any population that might not otherwise have access to those services. A key component of outreach is that the group providing it is not stationary, but mobile; in other words, it involves meetin ...

, software book author, and supporter of indie

documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

films.Nancy Blachman
at IMDB In 2007, she founded the Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival (JRMF),Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival

Mathematical Sciences Research Institute The Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute (SLMath), formerly the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), is an independent nonprofit mathematical research institution on the University of California campus in Berkeley, Califor ...

which has grown into a successful math enrichment enterprise for teenagers in the USA and beyond. She is a long time supporter of the educational foundation

Gathering 4 Gardner Gathering 4 Gardner (G4G) is an educational foundation and non-profit corporation (Gathering 4 Gardner, Inc.) devoted to preserving the legacy and spirit of prolific writer Martin Gardner. G4G organizes conferences where people who have been ins ...

.Board Of Directors
Gathering 4 Gardner She is a former chair and remains on the advisory board of Berkeley’s Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Department (IEOR).

Early life and education

Nancy Blachman was born in 1956 in Palo Alto, California, her father Nelson being an electrical engineer. The family spent some time living in Spain in the 1960s, and Nancy's interest in mathematics began during high school back in

Palo Alto Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...

when she took a course based on

George Polya George may refer to: Names * George (given name) * George (surname) People * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Papagheorghe, also known as Jorge / GEØRGE * George, stage name of Gior ...

's '' Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning''. She was also inspired by the mathematics contest produced by

Saint Mary's College of California Saint Mary's College of California is a Private college, private Catholic college in Moraga, California, United States. Established in 1863, it is administered by the De La Salle Brothers. The college offers undergraduate and graduate programs w ...

Saint Mary's College Mathematics Contest Problems For Junior and Senior High School
/ref> then popular with secondary schools throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.Saint Mary’s Math Contest: High School Division
: by Nancy Blachman & Nick Baxter She did undergraduate work at

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...

(1974 to 1976), got honours B.Sc. in

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematics, mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and Industrial sector, industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a ...

from the

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...

in the UK (1978), an M.S. in

operations research Operations research () (U.S. Air Force Specialty Code: Operations Analysis), often shortened to the initialism OR, is a branch of applied mathematics that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve management and ...

from

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

(1979) and an M.S. in

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

(1988).Nancy Blachman
Berkeley Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Department

Mathematics in education

Blachman taught a course in problem solving with

Mathematica Wolfram (previously known as Mathematica and Wolfram Mathematica) is a software system with built-in libraries for several areas of technical computing that allows machine learning, statistics, symbolic computation, data manipulation, network ...

at Stanford from 1990 to 1997.Authors: Nancy Blachman

InformIT Pearson Education, known since 2011 as simply Pearson, is the educational publishing and services subsidiary of the international corporation Pearson plc. The subsidiary was formed in 1998, when Pearson plc acquired Simon & Schuster's educatio ...

In 2004 she created Google Guide, an online interactive tutorial and reference about the capabilities of

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

. In 2005 while attending an education forum that promoted

STEM Stem or STEM most commonly refers to: * Plant stem, a structural axis of a vascular plant * Stem group * Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics Stem or STEM can also refer to: Language and writing * Word stem, part of a word respon ...

cience, Technology, Engineering, and Mathref name=JewishNew
How do you get kids to love math? Try a festival. The Jewish News of Northern California
/ref> she remembered how the Saint Mary's College Mathematics Contest had inspired her as a student. Working with Joshua Zucker and Jim Sotiros she decided to revive the structure and spirit of this long defunct competition.History of JRMF
By Nancy Blachman, JRMF Founder This led to the founding of the Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival in 2007. JRMF events now occur throughout the United States and have reached more than 100,000 students worldwide. Blachman has been a board member of Gathering 4 Gardner since 2008, served as its chair from 2012 to 2020, and is currently board president. She is the president and founder of Variable Symbols, a company that provides training, books, and tools to make complex software easier to use.
Variable Symbols, Inc.

Indie documentary films

Blachman has been working since 2015 with filmmakers to shine a light on people in difficult situations, to uplift marginalized voices, humanize them, and make their stories accessible—with the aim of encouraging viewers to take action. Documentaries she has supported include ''Aftershock, Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse, Ailey, Athlete A, Counted Out, Crip Camp, Dark Money, Free for All, Patrice: The Movie, The Fight'', and ''The Social Dilemma''. Nancy Blachman
''Eddy's World'' (documentary)

Personal life

On January 1, 1999, she married David desJardins. They have two children, Sarah and Louis.
/ref>

Books

* ''The Mathematica Graphics Guidebook'', by Cameron Smith and Nancy Blachman, Addison Wesley (1995), * ''Mathematica: A Practical Approach'', by Nancy Blachman and Colin Williams, Prentice-Hall (1993) * ''Mathematica quick reference, version 2'', by Nancy Blachman, Addison-wesley (1992), *
Maple V Quick Reference
', by N. Blachman and M. Mossinghoff, Brooks/Cole Pub. Co (1992)

References

External links

An Interview with Nancy Blachman by Gord! Hamilton - YouTube
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blachman, Nancy Recreational mathematicians American mathematics educators American women educators American documentary film producers University of California, Berkeley alumni Alumni of the University of Birmingham University of California, San Diego alumni Oberlin College faculty Living people 1956 births Stanford University School of Engineering alumni Stanford University Department of Computer Science faculty