Alumna leads Binghamton City Council using systems science principles

Two important things to know about Hadassah Mativetsky '07, MS '12: She's never felt limited to a particular discipline, and she's almost guaranteed to lead any group she joins.

Those traits - which she fostered as a systems science graduate student - have served her well through her time at Binghamton University and her career in quality improvement. Now she's facing new challenges as president of the Binghamton City Council.

"The path from systems science into quality improvement has a lot to do with working in cross-functional teams - being involved with different perspectives and different specialties," she says. "As an elected official, I deal with lots of different stakeholders, so it's important to value and respect people's different backgrounds and their different understandings of a situation or a policy."

Mativetsky's father, Tom Head, was a longtime member of the math faculty who passed away in 2017. Her mother, Eileen Head, retired as a professor and undergraduate director for computer science. She remembers seeing the Binghamton Crosbys vocal group perform when she was a child, and she still cherishes her memories of Binghamton University student teachers who taught her at her alternative school on the South Side of Binghamton and then at Vestal High School.

As an undergraduate in mathematical sciences with a Russian studies minor, Mativetsky tried to take advantage of every opportunity. She found time between classes and homework for a variety of extracurriculars, including campus radio station WHRW, the Undergraduate Math Club, the Phi Sigma Iota Foreign Language Honor Society, Symphonia, Hillel, and the Nukporfe African Dance and Drum Ensemble. She also studied abroad in six countries.

"I was the only one, or one of only a handful of people, who transferred from human development to mathematics. It's not to disrespect human development, but boy, I hated journaling!" she says with a laugh. "I did not have the emotional intelligence level in college to handle self-reflection at the level required for that degree, so I took a hard left into abstract algebra."

Mativetsky took part in AmeriCorps, did internships and worked in industry for a couple of years after graduation, then returned to the University in 2009 to pursue her interest in collective decision-making at the School of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering. She received funding from the National Science Foundation as a graduate research assistant, focused on the "Evolutionary Perspective on Collective Decision-Making." Her co-advisors were Shelley Dionne, now dean at the School of Management, and SSIE Distinguished Professor Hiroki Sayama.

"I got to do everything I wanted to do, all at once," she says.

After earning her master's, she collaborated with Distinguished Professor David Sloan Wilson on the Evolutionary Studies Program (EvoS) while also assisting with related initiatives such as the Binghamton Neighborhood Project. (As its religion and spirituality project coordinator, she would visit a different local religious service every weekend.)

After just shy of six years working for Universal Instruments Corp. as a quality engineer, Mativetsky transitioned to new roles with RL Quality Management Systems and Binghamton University's National Science Foundation I-Corps program. Since being sworn in to the Binghamton City Council in January 2024, she's mainly split her time between motherhood and city business.

In addition to the day-to-day requirements to oversee a city of around 47,000 residents, she is working with fellow council members and the mayor's office to take a hard look at Binghamton's charter and other regulations to ensure they make sense and comply with New York state law.

Mativetsky compares the process to her career in quality management, where companies are supposed to have documentation so that everyone is (literally) on the same page about how things work. Of course, in both the private and public sectors, that's the ideal scenario, and the reality can be a bit more complicated.

"I'm a nuts-and-bolts kind of person. I get really excited about little process improvements," she says. "Sometimes the system is the way it is because there are immovable forces that make it that way, but often it's just that way because no one's taken the time to look at it."

She keeps active with the University as well through the Mentor Match program, where she enjoys assisting students in any way possible, whether it's answering questions about her experiences, helping with public speaking and leadership skills, or just chatting. In 2021, the Alumni Association honored her with the Lois B. DeFleur Distinguished Young Alumnus/a Award, which recognizes graduates who are established leaders or demonstrate potential for future leadership.

Whether it's a City Council vote or any task she puts her mind to, Mativetsky's philosophy is clear and direct: "You need to make sure that when you wake up in the morning and you're looking at yourself in the mirror, you're comfortable having done that."