Helen Moore (mathematician)

Moore grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, where her interest in mathematics came from her grandfather, an architect.[1] In her last two years of high school, she attended a state magnet school, the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics.[1][3] Next, she attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, initially studying physics but shifting to mathematics,[1] and starting an ongoing mathematics competition club at the university.[3] She completed her Ph.D. at Stony Brook University with a doctorate in differential geometry and minimal surface theory, Minimal Submanifolds with Various Curvature Bounds, supervised by Michael T. Anderson.[2] She was frequently the only woman in her undergraduate classes, and the only woman of ten in her graduate program when she entered to leave with a Ph.D.[5]

After completing her doctorate, Moore taught at Bowdoin College and, on a sabbatical from Bowdoin, at Stanford University. While at Stanford, she became interested in disease modeling. She became Associate Director of the American Institute of Mathematics,[1] while continuing to work as a mentor to women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics at Stanford.[6] From there she moved to industry, working for Bristol-Myers Squibb[7] and later AstraZeneca.[4] Moore was elected to the council of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics in 2016.[7]

In 2018, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics listed Moore as a Fellow, "for impactful industrial application of mathematical modeling in oncology, immunology, and virology. For mentoring, teaching, and leadership."[4]