Education
McGeer who says her interest in mathematics began when she was five, skipped grades at the Saint Agatha"s School for Girls and did not meet with early encouragement from the head of the chemistry department at Swarthmore College, who gave her a lecture for wasting her time and his, because "women could not do chemistry". Graduating Phi Beta Kappa, McGeer completed her doctorate in organic chemistry from the University of Virginia in two years.