A Prolific Innovator: Dr. Helena Wisniewski [WIE From Around the World]

Dr. Helena Wisniewski’s father was an engineer who worked on the Viking Mars Landing—his patented actuator was on the landing vehicle—and her mother was a kindergarten teacher. Every Sunday, her grandfather used to arrive at her house with puzzles for her to solve, each one harder than the last, and he delighted in seeing her master them. In high school, she would pick up her father’s engineering books and apply them to her own coursework. She had a passion and an aptitude for math, and she would go on to study mathematics at William Paterson University, where she became a distinguished alumnus, and Stevens Institute of Technology before receiving her Ph.D. degree in mathematics from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.