Cathy O'Neil is a mathematician and the author of the blog mathbabe.org.O'Neil attended the University of California at Berkeley and then went on to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics from Harvard University. She taught mathematics at both MIT and Barnard College, doing research in arithmetic algebraic geometry.In 2007, O'Neil left academia to work in the finance industry as a data quant. Disenchanted with finance, she joined the Occupy Wall Street movement, particularly the Alternative Banking Group. In 2016, her book "Weapons of Math Destruction" was published.