The GAIM 2023 Women
Every year, Girls’ Adventures in Math honors four exemplary women from history. For GAIM 2023, meet Grace Alele-Williams, Alicia Alonso, Ellen Demorest, and Chien-Shiung Wu! Our competition problems will be based on the lives of these women.
Grace Alele-Williams, Professor
Born: 1932
Died: 2022
Birthplace: Delta State, Southern Nigeria
Hello! I was the first Nigerian woman to earn a doctorate degree, the first female vice-chancellor in Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa, and a professor of mathematics education at the University of Lagos. I have always cherished a belief in a woman’s ability to break through bias and achieve at a high level. My personal values guided my life, and I strove to be forthright, kind, and ready to sacrifice to give women access in the fields of math and science.
My math education studies took me to America during the time of Jim Crow laws and Martin Luther King Jr.’s civil rights activism. I dreamed of returning to Nigeria to inspire the people of my country (especially women!) to pursue higher education. Passionate about this cause, I made it possible for many African women to learn how to become teachers as well as mathematicians and scientists.
My words of advice - “Play hard and keep straight; continue getting quality education. Be well-informed, so that in any situation you have something positive to contribute.”
Alicia Alonso, Prima Ballerina
Born: 1920
Died: 2019
Birthplace: Havana, Cuba
Hola! From the time I could walk I knew I was born to dance. I first learned Spanish and Cuban folk dances but then fell in love with ballet. After studying for some time in Havana, my husband Fernando and I moved to New York City to pursue the dream of becoming professional ballet dancers. My dance career took off when I joined the corps de ballet of a company called Ballet Theatre and then became a soloist.
But then my eyes started to fail. I went through three eye surgeries only to find that I would never have peripheral vision again. It seemed that my dancing career was at an end. Unwilling to let go of my dream, I fought for a way to overcome my handicap and reclaim my identity as a ballerina. I returned to ballet training and showed my partners how to place themselves exactly where I expected to find them, without seeing them. I taught set designers to guide me with spotlights. Persistence and resilience saved my career!
Then with the advantages of experience and world renown, I returned to Cuba to start and direct the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, my country’s own ballet company.
Ellen Demorest, Fashion Designer
Born: 1824
Died: 1898
Birthplace: Schuylerville, New York, United States
Greetings and hats off to you! I love fashion and enjoy helping women look their best. My father owned a hat factory, and at age 18 I set up a milliner’s shop and ran my own business. When I saw my African-American maid cutting up a dress pattern from brown paper, I was inspired to figure out a way to mass-produce these dressmaking patterns from tissue paper.
Using my patterns, women who wanted to sew their own clothes were freed from their dependence on dressmakers. To further aid them, my husband and I published two magazines entitled Mme. Demorest’s Mirror of Fashions and Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly Magazine. I adapted the French style to my dress patterns in order to bring French fashion to the ordinary American woman in the 1860s. The ability to mass-produce these clothes allowed my tastes to greatly influence US fashion at the time - go viral, you might say.
Throughout my life I advocated for the rights of women and black people, particularly in education and employment. Here’s to helping each other be the best we can be!
Chien-Shiung Wu, Particle Physicist
Born: 1912
Died: 1997
Birthplace: Liuhe, Jiangsu Province, China
Ni hao! As a particle physicist, I studied the K-meson particle which didn’t follow a then-accepted law of physics. Sometimes I myself don’t believe in following rules, if they’re unjust and outdated. So this particle caught my attention, and I ended up using a strong magnet in a clever way to disprove the law of conservation of parity, and change the field of physics forever!
When I was a girl, few women in China received an education, but my dad started the first school for girls in my town. Thanks to him, I attended the best schools possible and became the first female physics professor at Princeton and later the first female tenured physics professor at Columbia University. My research on the K-meson eventually earned me the Wolf Prize in Physics and the nickname “First Lady of Physics”.
I may have been a force in experimental physics, but as a woman I enjoy being beautiful and elegant and having fun. I speak out against gender discrimination whenever I can, because brilliance as a scientist has nothing to do with gender.