fewer. When IBM approached Dr. Dahl to conduct research, she negotiated a record-breaking industry grant that included equipment, student salaries and a standard (albeit generous) consulting fee for her. Despite the fact that SFU deducted 35 per cent overhead from grants, she was told she couldn't earn that much more than her colleagues and she was forced to take an unpaid leave from SFU.

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Nevertheless, Dr. Dahl assumed that her salary was fair. In 1997 SFU discovered that male faculty were paid $10,000 a year more than female professors on average, and the university ordered a review of all women's salaries. Dr. Dahl was shocked. After two years of studying her specific case, she received a significant raise, retroactive to the initial review. Her pension wasnever adjusted for the years of being paid less than her male peers.

Dr. Dahl responded by acting as a mentor to other female scientists. One student, Alma Barranco, now faculty at Trinity Western University, held a high-level full-time job and had a difficult pregnancy with twins while a PhD student in 2002. She returned to her studies after recovering from complications, but was told she had gone over the time allowed for PhD studies. Dr. Dahl brought a complaint to the human rights commissioner, which led to new policies. "I graduated years ago but Veronica has become a mentor for life," Dr. Barranco says.

Dr. Dahl's groundbreaking research on logic programming has found applications as disparate as managing disease in agriculture and marine ecosystems to mapping the human genome.