VT College of Science Magazine Annual 2014 | Page 5

As her father wrote out her study plan, he included math topics and
physics. “My dad said, ‘Why don’t you try some applied math and let
me know what it’s like, because I’ve never heard of applied math’,”
Renardy said. “He was a ‘pure’ mathematician, after all.”
Renardy continued her studies in math and her advisor offered her
some advice. “He said up front that you can’t start a Ph.D. thinking
you’ll finish it or that you’ll find a job, but if you’re interested in the
subject and the research, then you should do it. He wasn’t going to
guarantee anything.
“After two and a half years [of grad school in Perth], I didn’t have
anything,” she said. “Then there was a visitor named Bill Pritchard
who later had a lab at Penn State who got together with my advisor and me, and then I understood what I had to do. I couldn’t have
foreseen it, but I had my doctoral degree done in another year and I
told my advisor I wasn’t ready and didn’t want to leave. He told me I
had to go and sent me to the University of Wisconsin for a post-doc
position.”
The position was only for a year but she arrived at the same time as
a German post-doc from Stuttgart named Michael, with whom she
now shares the Class of 1950 Endowed Professorship, three children,
and a last name. “Three months after arriving, you had to start looking for a job and I had an offer from Florida that everyone advised I
take. I didn’t feel ready for a teaching position – I really wanted to
write more and be involved in more research positions and so I said
to heck with it, I’m getting married. My boss at the time was very
kind and as Michael was going to be a post-doc at the University of
Minnesota, he helped me with a temporary instructorship there, so
I was affiliated with a department and I could do research.”
During her time in Minnesota, Renardy was researching, teaching,
and preparing to look for other jobs. She was also realizing there
were differences between the U.S. and other countries. “When I
came here for job applications I had to fill out gender and ethnicity and I thought, oh, I’ve never had to do that before – why does
this matter. I see now it’s a good way to check that people are being treated fairly.” And while Renardy believes her
abilities have always kept her on a level playing
field with men, she has heard comments in the
past that would cause problems today. “I’ve been
told that my income was a second income, so I
shouldn’t need a raise,” she said. “I’ve had people,
before I got married, ask what I was doing and telling me that I could/should have a family. In Wisconsin they wanted Michael to stay and asked me
why I didn’t give up – because I had a house and
a child.”

the Yamamuros, close by in Warm Hearth Village in Blacksburg, she
works in applied mathematics, focusing on fluid dynamics trying
to understand how fluids behave. “Something like ketchup, for instance, has a complex microstructure and exhibits unusual behavior
– it takes a lot of effort to get out of the bottle, but when you put it
down and the next person takes it, it’s much easier. The microstructures in ketchup could be bits of tomato that interact and have to be
torn apart to flow. It’s almost like an elastic solid when not enough
stress is applied to make it flow; but once it does flow it acts like a
fluid. It’s called a ‘yield stress’ fluid.”
To help her equations, Renardy has also developed computer codes
that currently stream through an enormous (by today’s standards)
desktop computer humming along on her office floor. “It has eight
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