Each month, we ask Senior Technical Women to share their stories and what they have learned. This issue’s Senior Technical Woman Profile features Jennifer Tour Chayes, Managing Director, Microsoft Research New England, Microsoft Corporation.
1. How did you decide to pursue a career in technology?
You could say I got into technology through the back door. I loved mathematics from the time I was four years old and made a decision early on to go into the sciences, but I actually started doing computer science late in my career. My first degree was in biology. Then I realized I enjoyed the more technical disciplines, got a Ph.D. in Mathematical Physics, did a couple of post-docs, and was a math professor for many years. I had attended physics graduate school with Nathan Myhrvold, who became chief technology officer of Microsoft and founded Microsoft Research. He suggested I leave my secure, tenured professorship at UCLA, join Microsoft Research, and start a theory group. This sounded crazy at first, because I didn’t know much about technology. But Nathan believed the science I was doing was relevant, it sounded like a really fantastic opportunity to build something new, and I think I’ve got the risk gene. So I made the leap.
The kind of math and physics I was doing turned out to be perfect for describing the Internet and dynamic random networks, so Nathan was right. The rest is history.
2. Based on your own experience, what skill(s) or characteristic(s) do you think are most important for technical women to succeed?
I believe there are many different ways to succeed and many skills that can lead to success. The one thing you must have is passion for what you’re doing—always.
There are some people who are deep and focused, who don’t let go of a problem. That type of persistence is important. There are others who can make connections, they see connections from one branch of science or technology to another, and that can be critical to their success. If you want to be a leader, you need the ability to inspire people, excite them, encourage them to take risks, and help them realize their vision. For me, there isn’t any one skill women need to be successful. We need to recognize our strengths and apply them where they are most effective.
3. What was the greatest challenge you have overcome in your career?
“Greatest challenge” has a bit of a negative connotation, which is not how I view events that stretched my abilities. There were many decisions that were big leaps into the unknown for me. For example, when I joined Microsoft Research, I had been a mathematics professor. I hadn’t programmed in 15 years, didn’t even know the computing industry’s acronyms, and wasn’t knowledgeable about the problems the industry was trying to solve. That was a big change. More recently, I got it into my head that I wanted to start my own research lab, Microsoft Research New England, and that was a big challenge.
The periods when you are in over your head are great times—they’re scary but also exhilarating. The challenges I’ve had come from deciding I wanted to do something or being offered something way above what I was capable of doing at the time, and I’ve jumped in and done it. Of course, along the way I was wondering: “Why did I do this to myself? I was successful where I was!” But that’s part of the process of dealing with challenges.
In terms of ongoing challenges, there’s always the dynamic of doing my own research, about which I’m deeply passionate, and being a leader. How much of myself do I devote to each of those endeavors, and how can I leverage those endeavors?
4. How do you manage work/life balance?
Have you read the last line on my bio? Years ago, I was told to write a bio for a Microsoft event, a bio that included the phrase “in her spare time, she enjoys (fill in the blank).” I said, “But I don’t have spare time,” but they insisted. So I wrote, “In her spare time, she enjoys overworking,” which people thought was funny, so I left it that way.
Most people would say I’m pretty heavy on the work component of the work/life balance. I’ve been told that I’m a role model for the unbalanced life. People tend to think of work as the negative part of the equation, but I’m wild about what I do. I get to work on so many different things. For example, this year I’m writing papers in physics, economics, math, biology, and theoretical computer science. I’m never bored.
Although I work a lot, I get to spend lots of time with my husband because he works with me on research projects. We probably get more time together than most couples, and we are together doing what we love. I have a stepson, and when he lived at home, I did not work such long hours or travel as much. I wanted to be there for him. But now that the working day only affects my life and my husband’s, it’s great to be able to spend time on interesting work with people we respect and enjoy. We have great relationships with our colleagues at the lab—many people who visit our lab say it feels like an extended family.
And it’s not as though I don’t take vacations. I take at least one vacation a year where I’m totally unplugged—no phones, no computers, nothing. Typically, I’ll come back energized and inspired, with different perspectives. Most people would say I don’t have a good work/life balance, but those same people would also say that I seem to be having a very good time!
5. What advice would you give to women in high tech who want to advance on the management track?
For me, there have been a couple of things that have made a difference. First, it’s important to inspire people. If you inspire the people around you, they will follow you. The second thing is that you need to take care of them. The people who have worked for me, whether as interns in grad school, post-docs, or regular researchers, know they can always come to me for advice, or references, or contacts. I expect a lot from them, but if they meet those expectations, I’ll always be there for them. People like to work for managers who care about them, who are willing to advocate for them. You get a reputation for that, and you’ll attract good people.
6. How do you stay current in your technical field?
Fortunately, I’m still very active in research. Most managers and leaders at my level don’t do a lot of research anymore. I do a lot of research, attend conferences, and give talks. These activities by themselves keep you current. I also work a lot with graduate students and new Ph.D.s, and our lab hosts about 200 visitors a year from academia. While I read technical papers and journals, I find it easiest to keep up through working and talking with people, because you gain different insights.
7. In your opinion, what (if any) are the remaining barriers faced by women in technology?
While there are probably a few holdouts who do not think as highly of women as they do of men, I believe that many of the biggest obstacles for women in technology today are self-imposed. There are exceptions to this, of course, but women often lack self-confidence and the willingness to advocate for ourselves.
Many women are unreasonably unsure of themselves and underestimate their talents relative to their male peers. This is something that really struck me when I was a professor. Again and again, my women students would tell me that the only reason they did so well was because they were lucky. At the same time, some men students would tell me that the only reason they did so poorly was because they were unlucky! Although there are lots of individual exceptions, there have been studies done documenting the statistical significance of this difference.
In general, we don’t advocate for ourselves as strongly as men do. Many women don’t request roles of greater responsibility or seniority, even when they are perfectly capable of assuming such roles. We don’t necessarily insist on being compensated fairly. I know that I still find it easier to advocate for other people than for myself, and I see this a lot in other women. There is a perception that somehow it’s wrong to promote yourself. I hope that this changes in the next generation!
Jennifer Tour Chayes is a Microsoft distinguished scientist and managing director of Microsoft Research New England, located in Cambridge, Mass., which she co-founded in July 2008. She joined Microsoft Research in 1997, co-founding the Theory Group. Chayes later became research-area manager for Mathematics, Theoretical Computer Science, and Cryptography at Microsoft Research Redmond. She is a co-author of more than 100 scientific papers and a co-inventor of more than 25 patents.
Chayes is affiliate professor of Mathematics and Physics at the University of Washington and serves on the Turing Award Selection Committee of the ACM, the board of trustees of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, the advisory boards of the Center for Discrete Mathematics and Computer Science, the U.S. National Committee for Mathematics, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Farms Research Campus, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and the selection committees for the Turing Award and the Anita Borg Award for Technical Leadership.
Chayes received her B.A. in biology and physics at Wesleyan University and her Ph.D. in mathematical physics at Princeton, and she pursued postdoctoral work in the mathematics and physics departments of Harvard and Cornell. She has received a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, a Sloan Fellowship, and a UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award. Chayes is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Fields Institute, and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and she is a national associate of the National Academies.
Her research interests include phase transitions in discrete mathematics and computer science, structural and dynamical properties of self-engineered networks, and algorithmic game theory. She is an acknowledged world expert in the modeling and analysis of random, dynamically growing graphs —used to model the Internet, the World Wide Web, and other technological and social networks.
Chayes’ husband, Christian Borgs, deputy managing director of Microsoft Research New England, is her principal scientific collaborator. In her spare time, she enjoys overworking.