The daughter of Philadelphia fur merchants, she was unable to attend the best high school of the city, which were then restricted to boys. She graduated from the
University of Pennsylvania in 1966. she earned her Ph.D. in 1970 from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the supervision of
Isadore Singer. She held temporary positions at MIT,
Tufts University,
Columbia University, the
Institute for Advanced Study, and
Princeton University before landing an associate professorship at the
University of Wisconsin in 1976. She moved to San Diego in 1983, She served as president of the
Association for Women in Mathematics from 1983 to 1985, and vice president of the
American Mathematical Society from 1985 to 1987. She has been co-editor-in-chief of the journal
Mathematical Research Letters since 1994. == Awards and honors ==