During her career, Marilyn N. Suydam was an elementary school teacher and a college professor. She specialized in making research findings accessible to teachers and others in mathematics education. Suydam was dedicated to reviewing, synthesizing, and translating mathematics education research. Through her work, she helped inform several generations of classroom teachers, professors, school board members, and parents about research in mathematics education and the implications it has for teaching and learning mathematics.
Among her many roles in research, Suydam was an associate director at the ERIC Clearinghouse for Science, Mathematics, and Environmental Education at Ohio State University, and she prepared the yearly summary of research in mathematics education for NCTM's
Journal for Research in Mathematics Education.
She also served on NCTM's original editorial panel for the
Arithmetic Teacher
journal (now called
Teaching Children Mathematics)
and on the NCTM Board of Directors.