Margaret H. Wright is an American computer scientist

Computer scientist

A computer scientist is a scientist who has acquired knowledge of computer science, the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their application in computer systems....

.

Wright spent her childhood in Hanford, California

Hanford, California

Hanford is an important commercial and cultural center in the south central San Joaquin Valley and is the county seat of Kings County, California. It is the principal city of the Hanford-Corcoran, California Metropolitan Statistical Area , which encompasses all of Kings County, including the cities...

, and Tucson, Arizona

Tucson, Arizona

Tucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...

, where she attended high school. She developed an interest in mathematics at an early age and studied the subject at Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

, where she received a B.S. degree in Mathematics and an M.S. in Computer Science. She then worked for several years at GTE Sylvania

Sylvania Electric Products

Sylvania Electric Products was a U.S. manufacturer of diverse electrical equipment, including at various times radio transceivers, vacuum tubes, semiconductors, and mainframe computers...

, after which she returned to Stanford to continue her study in computer science, obtaining a Ph.D. in 1976.

She is the Silver Professor of Computer Science and former Chair of the Computer Science department at Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences

Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences

The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences is an independent division of New York University under the Faculty of Arts & Science that serves as a center for research and advanced training in computer science and mathematics...

, New York University

New York University

New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

, with research interests in optimization

Optimization (mathematics)

In mathematics, computational science, or management science, mathematical optimization refers to the selection of a best element from some set of available alternatives....

, linear algebra

Linear algebra

Linear algebra is a branch of mathematics that studies vector spaces, also called linear spaces, along with linear functions that input one vector and output another. Such functions are called linear maps and can be represented by matrices if a basis is given. Thus matrix theory is often...

, and scientific computing.. She is a member of the National Academy of Science and the National Academy of Engineering.
Earlier at Bell Laboratories, she became head of the Scientific Computing Research Department in 1997, and a Bell Labs Fellow (1998).

She has served as president of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics

The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics was founded by a small group of mathematicians from academia and industry who met in Philadelphia in 1951 to start an organization whose members would meet periodically to exchange ideas about the uses of mathematics in industry. This meeting led...

 and is senior editor of the SIAM Review.