Jennifer Tour Chayes

Jennifer Tour Chayes is Managing Director and Distinguished Scientist at Microsoft Research New England in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which she founded in 2008, and Microsoft Research New York City, which she founded in 2012. Chayes has been with Microsoft Research since 1997, when she cofounded the Theory Group. She received her Ph.D. in mathematical physics at Princeton University. She is Affiliate Professor of Mathematics and Physics at the University of Washington, and was for many years Professor of Mathematics at UCLA.

Chayes was born in New York City and grew up in White Plains, N.Y., the child of Iranian immigrants. She received her B.A. in Biology and Physics from Wesleyan University in 1979 where she graduated first in her class. She received her Ph.D. in Mathematical Physics at Princeton University. She did her postdoctoral work in the Mathematics and Physics departments at Harvard and Cornell. She moved to UCLA as a tenured Professor of Mathematics in 1987.

Source: Wikipedia