Susan Weidner took a somewhat unexpected turn into the statistics field early in life. She had decided against pursuing a career in medicine and the pressure to choose a major was bearing down on her at Eastern Kentucky University.

When Susan Thomas graduated from the University of Texas with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and a minor in computer modeling, she was one of only two women in a graduating class of more than 100 students.

For Katherine Sanborn, science and math were always like part of the family. Dinnertime conversations with her parents, both pharmacists, often revolved around the results of Sanborn’s chemistry class experiments.