mathematics

Gladys H. Reynolds

Gladys H. Reynolds is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Gladys H. Reynolds rather than just read about it. In short: Gladys H. Reynolds is an American statistician who did pioneering research on modeling sexually transmitted diseases.

Key takeaways

Gladys H. Reynolds belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Gladys H. Reynolds to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Gladys H. Reynolds from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Gladys H. Reynolds is an American statistician who did pioneering research on modeling sexually transmitted diseases. She worked for many years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was the first female chief of a CDC statistics branch, and the first statistician to serve in that role.

Education and career Reynolds did her undergraduate studies at Yankton College and was encouraged by the head of the mathematics department there to go on to graduate study. She earned a master's degree in statistics at Virginia Tech, and joined the CDC in 1960. Five years later, she moved to Emory University as an instructor, and completed a Ph.D. there in 1973. Her dissertation, A Control Model for Gonorrhea, was one of the first works to produce a mathematical model for the sexual transmission of disease. She returned to CDC, where she headed the Evaluation and Statistical Services Branch of the Division of Sexually Transmitted Diseases from 1979 to 1989, and worked in the Office of Minority Health as a senior statistician from 1989 to 2007, when she retired. She also chaired the Statistics in Epidemiology section of the American Statistical Association.

Activism As well as working on disease modeling, Reynolds worked for equality at CDC. She recalls that, when she started at CDC, there were no African-Americans there, very few women, and significant resistance to change in those areas, and that she was "very much involved in trying to hire women and minorities". She served on the Equal Employment Opportunity Advisory Council from 1986 to 1987, chairing the Affirmative Action Committee in 1987, and serving as president of the Association of Executive Women of the CDC. In this work, she used her statistical expertise to set hiring goals that would achieve a representative workforce. In her work for the American Statistical Association, she also campaigned for greater representation of women and minorities in association offices and honors, and from 1996 to 2002 she chaired the association's Committee on Minorities. She also belonged to the Minority Affairs Committee of the American College of Epidemiology.

Awards and honors Reynolds was elected as a fellow of the American College of Epidemiology in 1983, and of the American Statistical Association in 1985. She was elected to the International Statistical Institute in 1986. The CDC gave Reynolds their Award for Contributions to the Advancement of Women in 1986, and Women in Science and Engineering gave her their Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989. In 1999 Reynolds was recipient of the American Statistical Association's Founders Award.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Gladys H. Reynolds

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Gladys H. Reynolds claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Gladys H. Reynolds before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Gladys H. Reynolds ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Gladys H. Reynolds

In research: Gladys H. Reynolds appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Gladys H. Reynolds in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Gladys H. Reynolds is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics American statisticians, American women statisticians, Elected Members of the International Statistical Institute, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Gladys H. Reynolds outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Gladys H. Reynolds in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Gladys H. Reynolds means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Gladys H. Reynolds out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Gladys H. Reynolds in simple terms?

Gladys H. Reynolds is an American statistician who did pioneering research on modeling sexually transmitted diseases.

Why does Gladys H. Reynolds matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Gladys H. Reynolds?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Gladys H. Reynolds.