Cullum studied chemical engineering at Virginia Tech, graduating in 1960.[2][3] She continued at Virginia Tech for a master's degree in mathematics in 1962, with the master's thesis Applications of the analog computer to mathematical problems.[4] She completed a Ph.D. in applied mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1966. Her dissertation, Continuous Optimal Control Problems with Phase Space Constraints, concerned control theory, and was supervised by Stephen Diliberto.[5]
She served as president of the IEEE Control Systems Society in 1989.[6]
Books
With Ralph A. Willoughby, Cullum is the coauthor of the books Lanczos Algorithms for Large Symmetric Eigenvalue Computations: Vol. I, Theory and Lanczos Algorithms for Large Symmetric Eigenvalue Computations: Vol. II, Programs (Birkhäuser, 1985).[7] The first volume was reprinted by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics in 2002, as volume 41 of their Classics in Applied Mathematics book series.[8]
Recognition
The IEEE Control Systems Society gave Cullum their Distinguished Member Award in 1989.[6] She was elected as an IEEE Fellow in 1990, "for contributions to practical numerical algorithms for large-scale systems".[9]