Sara was advised to wear a wig to interview for her job as a female engineer so that she would look smarter. She didn’t. She had just started wrapping her patchy bald hair in the most basic of wraps, and looked pale and tired, and smart.

That was 5 years ago this month, and these days she wears her wraps the same way every day. But as Wrapunzelista and master wrapper Leorah says, ‘it always looks different.’ Sara’s engineering faculty have been amazing at supporting her throughout her cancer journey. The saline breast implants used for her breast reconstruction were actually recalled for causing other types of cancer – multiple types of lymphoma and internal squamous cell carcinoma. It was Sara’s male colleagues who encouraged her to go public and speak at the Breast Implant Safety Summit as a test and validation engineer who has been fighting for her life for years.

Last week, Sara and her coworkers shared their math accessibility story at the Microsoft Ability Summit in Redmond, Washington. Sara never expected that the fruits of her work from her early scarf and wicked cancer days would make such an impact around the world. Millions of people can now use math because it is accessible to assistive technology for disabled people. Like Sara.

This week on the Hopkins campus, Sara was celebrating her new scarves in the mailbox between meetings in her Space Systems Engineering polo, and found a copy of the first article she wrote about math 3 years ago in Baltimore She hesitated to share the picture of her sitting in an empty conference room deep in conversation with her co-presenter from the UK about a United Nations email on math accessibility. Her favorite scarf, her Hopkins sweatshirt, yoga pants, and a mask. It’s how this Sara gal gets work done!

After 25 years with patchy alopecia, Sara shaves her head, but it still has odd shadows. Without her scarves, she would not be comfortable showing up in the world or changing the entire math ecosystem. Love you, Wrapunzel!