Today's guest is Ellen Ischen, a professor of mathematics at the University of Oregon.

Today she'll tell us all about her career, including a secret math journal she's kept since childhood, all very mysterious.

There's also some chat about creativity, collaboration,

and an aborted game of leapfrog with the legendary John Conway. I'll also just quickly point out

today we'll talk about some of the challenges women face in mathematics and quote some language

you might find offensive. In fact, I hope you find it offensive because it is.

But we also thought it was necessary just to convey the story being told.

All that's to come, but as we so often do, the story starts at the very beginning.

I'm from New Jersey.

I was born in Princeton, New Jersey,

and I grew up in Lawrenceville, which is one town over.

So Princeton's like a famous academic place,

so you were born?

Yeah, I was born at Princeton Medical Center,

which isn't far from Princeton University,

but I didn't have any particular connection with the university. It just happened that my parents

lived in Lawrenceville and the nearest hospital was in Princeton. What were you like as a little girl?

I was pretty self-motivated and driven. Yeah, my mom says I resented having to go to nursery school

because I had my own crafts projects and I felt like school was getting in the way of my plans,

but, you know, had to go because my parents had to go to work. Interested in lots of things,

probably pretty typical kid, but maybe a bit driven.

Would there have been any signs at that really early age that you were going to end up being

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