>Kalai was born and raised in Tel Aviv, Israel, in an academic family. Her father, Yair Tauman, is an economist and game theorist. Her high school classes bored

>Kalai was born and raised in Tel Aviv, Israel, in an academic family. Her father, Yair Tauman, is an economist and game theorist. Her high school classes bored her — one report card documented something like 150 school absences, she recalls, as she preferred to spend her time water skiing and socializing. But her analytical skills were always there. >“When my parents didn’t let me go out, often the only way to get my dad to agree was to tell him, ‘OK, give me a math riddle. As hard as you want, but if I solve, I go.’” She usually went. wow