|
|
|
Background As a professor of math at Hunter College, doing research in pure mathematics,
Dr Whittemore became concerned that her research was so esoteric that perhaps only
20 people in the world knew what she was doing. Her transition into the "real
world" began by teaching statistics. One summer, while taking a course for
mathematicians at Cornell University, she learned about a program sponsored
by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, whose primary
mission was to make mathematics relevant to society. She applied for the
program, and received a fellowship in 1974 to work at New York University
on problems
in cancer research, applying mathematics. That was the seminal event.
After
that, she never wanted to teach calculus again! She worked on cancer research
with Dr. Bernard Altshuler, focusing on problems of environmental risk
factors for cancer. That was where she met J. B. Keller, who was the mathematician
assigned to oversee her transition into cancer research. Education
B. S. Mathematics, Marymount Manhattan College, 1958
M. A. Mathematics, Hunter College, The City University of New York, 1964
Ph.D. Mathematics, The City University of New York, 1967
Career Path
She joined the faculty of the Stanford University School of Medicine
in 1978 as Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. In recent
years, she has been active in helping to establish the Cooperative
Family Registry for Breast Cancer Studies, an NCI-funded international project
developed to identify and characterize large numbers of individuals with breast
cancer and their relatives. She has been a member of the Institute of Medicine at
the National Academy of Sciences since 1994, and is an Associate Editor on the Editorial
Board of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.
Her recent research focus has been on developing improved statistical
methods for the design and conduct of studies involving hereditary
predisposition and modifiable lifestyle characteristics in the etiologies
of site-specific cancers.
|
