Whether going to grandma's house, the post office, or the grocery store, this little girl never wanted to travel the same way twice. She drove with her mom one way, her dad another. The backseat toddler was interested in who got there fastest. "I guess I was always interested in efficiency," she admits, now all grown up.
Even so, the self-described "math kid" didn't imagine herself following a quantitative path. For most of her college career, Grace DeForest (HS'09) was sure that she wanted to go into teaching. It was only because of the insistence of Joel Greenhouse, her statistics professor, that she even considered the field of biostatistics, which is the application of statistical analysis to biological or medical data—quite a step up from her backseat experiments. After taking Greenhouse's course and becoming a teaching assistant for him, she realized that biostatistics was the field for her.
Not that she didn't get her teaching fix in other ways. While an undergrad, DeForest cofounded a Carnegie Mellon chapter of the national women's mentoring organization Strong Women, Strong Girls. "Opening the eyes of young girls and getting them to ask questions [about math and science] was really valuable," DeForest says—and she knows from experience.
Since earning her degree, she has continued her education in biostatistics as a graduate student at Stanford University—a move supported by the Gertrude M. Cox Scholarship. The nationally recognized scholarship is given annually to encourage women to enter statistically oriented professions. DeForest appreciates the encouragement and support, though she adds, "I don't think of myself as a woman in statistics. I think of myself as a statistician."
