Background

Heidi Howkins was born in 1968 in the United States.

Education

Heidi Howkins was educated at Wellesley College and received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1989. Then she did her graduate studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology until 1991. Later she studied at Yale University, where she got a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 2009.

Career

Heidi Howkins is a mountain climber who spent the 1990s as a professional high-altitude mountaineer climbing 8,000-meter peaks in the Himalayas with support from Mountain Hardwear and the National Geographic Society. In 2000 she attempted to reach the peak of K2 in the Karakoram of Pakistan and documented this attempt in her 2001 book K2: One Woman's Quest for the Summit.

In the book, Howkins, addressing the reader through stories told to a bemused hitchhiker, reports much more than the sheer achievement of her ascents of K2, notable though they were. Along the way, she tells of a failed marriage, the logistical nightmares that accompany any expedition to remote places, and endless conflicts that can ensue when climbing partners are not carefully vetted. As the lone woman on her K2 climbs, Howkins had more than the usual problems to contend with, though those problems - bad weather, scary bus rides along the Karakoram Highway, the constant presence of death - were hard enough. All of them get an airing in Howkins's book, but for all that, her sense of adventure far outweighs the many downsides.

Since August 2018, Howkins has been a professor of philosophy and graduate coordinator for Women's & Gender Studies at Southern Connecticut State University. Before that, from July 2008, she worked as an associate professor. She teaches courses in feminist pedagogy, gender studies, the meaning of life, metaphysics, logic, epistemology, and the ethics of information technology. Her research interests include models for the continuum/quantum logic, paradoxes in provability logic, gender-based violence as well as entitlement and power-based misconduct. Her work in women's and gender studies focuses on Title IX advocacy and exploring ways to address the problem of power-based sexual harassment and misconduct in educational institutions.

Achievements

• Heidi Howkins is a successful mountain climber who reached the peak of K2 mountain, becoming one of the women to attempt it. As a result, her famous book, K2: One Woman's Quest for the Summit, was published. It is considered to be the only book that reveals a little-seen side of the sport: the emotions and often complex relationships of the climbers.
  
  Howkins is also an outstanding educator, known as a professor of philosophy at Southern Connecticut State University.

Works

More photos

• book

  • K2: One Woman's Quest for the Summit

    (The author shares the incredible story of her efforts to ...)

    2001

Views

Quotations: "I have to be ready for whatever challenge I may face. My daughter gives me a desperate kind of strength."

Connections

Heidi Howkins was married. The marriage produced one daughter, and then the couple divorced.