Native Americans were, in the 1970s and beyond, among the most underrepresented groups in STEM fields at every level.

The pipeline problems were real and multiple: inadequate educational resources on many reservations, underfunded rural schools that lacked the advanced mathematics and science curriculum that STEM careers required, cultural barriers created by the historical association of American educational institutions with the boarding school system that had tried to erase Native cultures and languages, economic barriers that made higher education inaccessible without significant support.

Mary Ross had navigated all of those barriers.

She knew what the navigation had cost, and she knew what it had made possible, and she had a specific and grounded understanding of what needed to change to make the navigation easier for the Native students who came after her.