LVC Professor Wins Award, Encourages Students to Pursue Math and Computer Science

Stephanie Blanda '09, LVC Assistant Professor of Mathematical Sciences, received the Moxie Award at the annual Women in Technology Awards sponsored by the Technology Council of Central Pennsylvania in September. The Moxie Award recognizes a pioneer who has blazed the trail for other women in technology.

"There is not a lack of young women wanting to pursue this field-partly, it's finding someplace that's comfortable," said Blanda. "I lucked out. My high school teacher was a female and emphasized the field needed more women. I was one of maybe two females in my programming classes in high school. Then, at LVC, even though all my professors were male, I still felt very supported. We had programming competitions, and they told me, 'You should do this.' It's getting the word out there and showing that there are places that will be supportive."

From playing old Atari games to watching Star Trek, Blanda's mind, even at a young age wondered how data and programming worked. She arrived as a student at LVC with a focus on Computer Science and a career goal of programming computers. However, after her first few classes, several professors suggested she add a Mathematics major, which she eventually agreed to as a second major.

"My advisor, Dr. [Michael] Fry, said, 'You should think about going to grad school because you're good at explaining this stuff. Maybe you should think about teaching.'"

Blanda followed Dr. Fry's suggestion and received her Ph.D. in Mathematics with a minor in Computational Science from Penn State University. Along the way, she taught as a Visiting Professor at Mercyhurst University and spent a year running the Math Tutoring Center with Penn State Learning.

Now, Blanda occupies her former advisor's office in LVC's Kiyofumi Sakaguchi '67 Mathematical Sciences Suite. While at Mercyhurst, she attended the Joint Math Meetings in San Diego, Calif., and connected with Dr. Ken Yarnall, Associate Professor of Mathematical Sciences, who was interviewing for a new math faculty member. The opportunity to teach Math and Computer Science classes helped sway Blanda to take the position.

Not only is Blanda making an impact at her alma mater, but she's also influencing high school students by offering a summer Computer and Data Science Camp for rising juniors and seniors.

"The camp is to help introduce students to these fields," said Blanda. "We do a little coding, a little data science because data science is this buzzword they've heard about. Students ask, 'What is it? What can I do with it? Is this something I'm even interested in?' because it's hard to know until you actually do the stuff."