Nancy Blachman (born 1956 in

Palo Alto, CA Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was estab ...

) 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 Indie is a short form of "independence" or "independent"; it may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Gaming *Independent video game development, video games created without financial backing from large companies *Indie game, any game (board ...

documentary films. In 2007, she founded the

Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival The Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival (JRMF) is an educational organization that sponsors locally organized mathematics festivals and online webinars targeting K–12 students. The events are designed to introduce students to mathematics in a c ...

(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, Califo ...

which has grown into a successful math enrichment enterprise for teenagers in the USA and beyond. She is a former chair of Gathering 4 Gardner and is still an active board member. She is currently Chair of the Advisory Board of Berkeley’s Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Department (IEOR).

Education and career

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 for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was estab ...

when she took a course based on

George Polya George may refer to: People * George (given name) * George (surname) * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Washington, First President of the United States * George W. Bush, 43rd Presid ...

'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 Church, Catholic college in Moraga, California. Established in 1863, it is affiliated with the Catholic Church and administered by the De La Salle Brothers. The college of ...

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 Blachman did undergraduate work at

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

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

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

from the

University of Birmingham , mottoeng = Through efforts to heights , established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...

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

operations research Operations research ( en-GB, operational research) (U.S. Air Force Specialty Code: Operations Analysis), often shortened to the initialism OR, is a discipline that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve deci ...

from

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

(1979) and an M.S. in

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

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

(1988).Nancy Blachman
Berkeley Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Department She taught a course in problem solving with

Mathematica Wolfram Mathematica is a software system with built-in libraries for several areas of technical computing that allow machine learning, statistics, symbolic computation, data manipulation, network analysis, time series analysis, NLP, optimizat ...

at Stanford from 1990 to 1997.Authors: Nancy Blachman

InformIT Pearson Education is a British-owned education publishing and assessment service to schools and corporations, as well for students directly. Pearson owns educational media brands including Addison–Wesley, Peachpit, Prentice Hall, eCollege, ...

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

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

. In 2005 while attending an education forum that promoted

STEM Stem or STEM may refer to: Plant structures * Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang * Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure * Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...

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.Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival Founder Nancy Blachman Featured By UC Berkeley
/ref> Blachman has been a board member of Gathering 4 Gardner since 2008 and served as its chair from 2012 to 2020. She is currently 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. She has co-produced over a dozen indie films and documentaries, including ''The Price'' (2017), ''The Infiltrators'' (2019), and '' Eddy's World'' (2020).Nancy Blachman
at IMDB

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 Mathematics educators Women educators American documentary film producers Stanford University alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni Alumni of the University of Birmingham University of California, San Diego alumni Oberlin College faculty Stanford University faculty Living people 1956 births