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Hazel Wagner

Why did you choose Northwestern?
Partly I was living in the northern suburbs of Chicago, raising 3 young children, and had to be able to get to classes. Also, it is a great school.

How would you describe your research and/or work to a non-academic audience? What was it then and/or what it is now?
I wanted to understand what made mathematics easily accessible to some students while creating fear and inaccessibility to others. I had a theory about how visualization was a part of the effective process in learning and applying math. I spent a year giving assessments to elementary school through high school, college, and adult groups. I diversified the test groups by city, suburban, and rural. My conclusions supported the theory and the results were often quoted and extended after I published my findings.

Tell us who or what inspired your research and/or work.
I put myself through college in part by tutoring math at all levels elementary through grad school students and even one medical school student who was concerned about the math that would be on his medical board exams. I had at least 3 students who went from struggling to majoring in math, one all the way to PhD, and that doctor passed his boards.

What are you most proud of in your career to date?
Being able to pivot from teaching math to sales and marketing in the computer industry to starting my own consulting company. I also became a professional speaker and did a TEDx talk that already has over 1.6 million views.

Tell us about a current achievement or something you're working on that excites you.
I teach business classes and webinars online. I was doing some of that before the pandemic but now am very busy teaching business skills online.

What advice would you give your younger self or someone considering a similar path?
Keep you options open. Sometimes what you learned in school fits very well into a profession you had not thought about. Also read and have wide interests, not just the narrow subject you started with.