Caryn Navy | |
|---|---|
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| Born | (1953-07-05)July 5, 1953 (age 72) |
| Spouse | David Holladay |
| Academic background | |
| Education | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Alma mater | University of Wisconsin–Madison |
| Thesis | Nonparacompactness in Para-Lindelöf Spaces (1981) |
| Doctoral advisor | Mary Ellen Rudin |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Mathematics Computer science |
| Sub-discipline | Set-theoretic topology Braille technology |
Caryn Linda Navy (born July 5, 1953) is an Americanmathematician andcomputer scientist.Blind since childhood, she is chiefly known for her work inset-theoretic topology andBraille technology.
Navy was born inBrooklyn,New York in 1953. Bornpremature, she was diagnosed as totally blind fromretinopathy of prematurity. Her family soon discovered that she could actually see from the corner of one eye, but at age 10 she lost all sight due toretinal detachment.[1]
The next year, in sixth grade, Navy began learning to read and writeBraille at school. She also learned theNemeth Braille system for writingmathematics,[2] which became her favorite subject. She enjoyed team math competitions, and at age 14 independently rediscoveredEuclid's formula for evenperfect numbers.[1] She also learnedHebrew Braille in preparation for herbat mitzvah service.[3] At age 16 Navy was hired for her first job, as aDictaphone typist inNew York City. She took a class to learn to travel theNew York City Subway.[1]
Navy attended theMassachusetts Institute of Technology 1971–1975, majoring in mathematics. The only textbook she hadin Braille was her calculus book. All her other books were obtained asaudiobooks fromRecording for the Blind.At MIT, her undergraduate advisorJames Munkres introduced her to the subject oftopology. Upon her graduation with a bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1975,[2] she received the AMITA Senior Academic Award from the Association of MIT Alumnae.[4] Early in her undergraduate career, Navy metDavid Holladay, anelectrical engineering student. He looked up enough Braille to write her a note after their first meeting. They were married after graduation.[1]
Navy attended graduate school at theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison, majoring in mathematics, with a minor incomputer science. During her graduate education, she used anOptacon device to read textbooks that were not available in Braille or as audiobooks.[1] She received herM.A. in 1977,[2] and her Ph.D. in 1981 under the supervision of topologistMary Ellen Rudin.[5]
Navy's doctoral thesis, "Nonparacompactness in Para-Lindelöf Spaces", was important in the development ofmetrizability theory. The paper examines the properties of para-Lindelöftopological spaces, which are a generalization of bothLindelöf spaces andparacompact spaces. In a para-Lindelöf space, everyopen cover has a locally countable openrefinement, that is, one such that each point of the space has aneighborhood that intersects onlycountably many elements of the refinement. The spaces constructed by Navy arecounterexamples to the conjecture that all para-Lindelöf spaces are paracompact. Some of her spaces are evennormalMoore spaces under suitable set-theoretic assumptions. Since every metrizable space is paracompact, these are counterexamples to thenormal Moore space conjecture.
Stephen Watson called Navy's construction "a rather general one that permitted quite a lot of latitude" and said, "No other way of getting para-Lindelöf is known. I don't think another way of getting para-Lindelöf is even possible—Navy's method looks quitecanonical to me."[6] In 1983,William Fleissner modified one of her spaces to be a normal Moore space under the assumption of a particularcovering property. Fleissner's examples finally resolved the normal Moore space conjecture by showing that it requireslarge cardinal axioms.[6][7]
After graduate school, Navy took a position as a visitingassistant professor in the mathematics department ofBucknell University in 1981.[2] While they were living inLewisburg, Pennsylvania, Holladay started a software company called Raised Dot Computing, focused on computer Braille technology. He was inspired by Navy's need for Braille translation to help with her math teaching.[8] She was an important consultant for the company, helping with software ideas and testing products in her university work. In December 1981, Raised Dot Computing released its first major product, BRAILLE-EDIT, aword processor and two-wayBraille translator program for theApple II.[9] Navy left the university in 1984 to work for the company,[2] and the couple and the company moved back toMadison, Wisconsin in July 1984.[9]
Navy applied her computer skills to improving Raised Dot Computing's assistive software, producing enhanced versions of BRAILLE-EDIT and utility programs to handle textbook-format Braille and other special formats. In 1985 they added a line ofMS-DOS software, culminating in the company's most successful product, MegaDots. Released in August 1992 and maintained until 2016, MegaDots provided Braille translation and word processing for the PC. Raised Dot Computing was transferred in September 1998 to a Wisconsinnonprofit organization called Braille Planet,[9] which was then bought out in August 1999 byDuxbury Systems.[10] Navy and Holladay live inWestford, Massachusetts,[8] and still work at Duxbury.[11]
Navy is a member of theBraille Authority of North America, where she serves as a consultant to the Nemeth Code Technical Committee.[12]
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