Iris Mack: A Women Silenced
August 29, 2009
by Karen
|The New Agenda frequently discusses women who are silenced for speaking out. Iris Mack is one of many women silence by Larry Summers while at Harvard. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
Iris Mack is the second African-American woman to have graduated with a doctorate in applied mathematics from Harvard. Since obtaining her degree, she alternated between the business world and the educational world. She has taught at MIT, University of San Francisco, and Clark Atlanta University.
In 1999, she went to London for a year to further her education and received “licenses in financial derivatives, regulations and securities.” In 2000, she served as the Vice President for Dealcomposer.com, allowing her to work throughout London, Seoul, and Concord. She went to work at Enron the same year it went bankrupt after the CEOs cooked the books too long.
After her position at Enron, she returned to Harvard as a quantitative analysis in 2002. She immediately discovered trouble over the university company’s:
…frightening” usage of derivatives and statistical modeling techniques, as well as the Company’s lack of a timely and portfolio-wide risk management system, high employee turnover rate, and low level of productivity in the workplace, specifically among managers.
Within months of her new job, she was fired.
Ironically, Iris’ assessment of the risks in Harvard’s portfolio turned out to be spot on:
…has called into question the use of some of these financial instruments, lending more credibility to Mack’s criticisms.
After years of soaring returns, the University’s endowment plunged at least 22 percent in the four months starting July 1, and Harvard officials are projecting a decline of 30 percent for the full year.
Her experience at Clark Atlanta University taught her:
When some of her students at CAU struggled in her classes because they didn’t have the necessary background, she realized that there’s no way you can try to catch up after a certain point. That teaching experience sparked the idea she’d had for a long time: creating products that make math more accessible to students, especially adolescents. That is why she is reaching out to children at the middle school and high school level now to give them the mathematics tools they’ll need to thrive in college.
She now works at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and is currently writing her second book over her experiences in the financial market. She is also a professional speaker and member of several boards.
I really appreciate this article. As an educator I love that she has turned her experience into activism by developing curriculum for children. It’s also pretty appalling that she was fired and it’s good to bring this to light.
More details on Dr. Mack may be found on http://www.twitter.com/DrIrisMack.
In addition, she was featured in a recent Barron’s article: “Whistleblowers whoraised the red flags about Harvard Management” (http://www.businessinsider.com.....sis-2009-7)
Hm, the second link won’t show up on my computer, but her twitter looks awesome. I am excited to see all the TNA links there. Thanks! TNA’s reputation is already way ahead of us, a sign of good things to come. ^_^
Karen, why don’t you try this link to the Barron’s article: http://www.tickerforum.org/cgi.....ost=105095
Thanks! It works! Pretty cool.
THIS IS ONE SMART LADY,I KNOW HER PERSONALLY AND ADMIRE AND RESPECT HER.
An excellent article about the excellent Iris Mack:
http://octogalore.blogspot.com.....-room.html
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