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“You don’t have to choose between being fabulous and fun and being smart -- they go hand in hand.” While Danica McKellar earned her fame for her portrayal of Winnie Cooper on the hit television series The Wonder Years, she’s also well-known for something else: being a brilliant mathematician and best-selling author. It’s hardly surprising that McKellar managed to rack up an impressive fortune along the way due to her hard work and keen mind. Her net worth today is reportedly in the neighborhood of $3 million.

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Anyone who grew up in the late 1980s is familiar with Danica McKellar, who played the coveted role of Kevin Arnold’s girlfriend on the coming-of-age television show, The Wonder Years. While  McKellar continues to act today, she’s also become not only a mathematician in her own right, but also an advocate for math and stem education for women. Here’s a closer look at Danica McKellar’s inspiring journey.

Becoming Winnie Cooper

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Danica Mae McKellar was born on January 3, 1975 in La Jolla, California, but moved to Los Angeles when she was seven years old. She began taking acting classes as a child, and landed her first television commercial when she was nine. Over the next few years, work continued to roll in for the actress but her big break came in 1998 when she landed the part of Gwendolyn “Winnie” Cooper on The Wonder Years. 

The Wonder Years ran until 1993, during which time McKellar became a household name. In addition to being a commercial hit, the show was also critically acclaimed. McKellar received her fair share of praise, including a Young Artist Award in 1989.

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Beyond Winnie Cooper

By the time The Wonder Years ended, McKellar had transitioned from being a child actress to a young adult. She decided to take a break from acting and enrolled at the prestigious University of California, Los Angeles as a math major. During the subsequent years, she established herself as a force to be reckoned with in the discipline and even has a mathematical proof named in her honor: the Charles-McKellar-Winn theorem. She graduated summa cum laude  from UCLA in 1998 with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics.

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After completing college, McKellar jumped back into acting. Her return was successful with guest appearances on popular shows such as Babylon 5, Sirens, NCIS, NYPD Blue, The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother and The West Wing. She also wrote and starred on Inspector Mom, a Lifetime web-based miniseries which ran from 2006 to 2007. McKellar’s other television work included the animated superhero series Young Justice, Dancing With the Stars, King of the News, and Impractical Jokers. 

Academia was still calling to McKellar, however, so she returned to graduate school at the University of Chicago to pursue a PhD in mathematics. McKellar's passion for the subject spurred her to start her own website for aspiring young female mathematicians. This, in turn, led to her publishing several books, including Math Doesn’t Suck: How to Survive Middle School Math Without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail; Kiss My Math: Showing Pre-Algebra Who’s Boss; Hot X: Algebra Exposed!; and Girls Get Curves: Geometry Takes Shape. 

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McKellar’s sister, Crystal Scripps McKellar, who also appeared on The Wonder Years, has not fared as well. In fact, the former child actress-turned-general counsel was recently sued by the venture capital firm for which she worked for more than $1 million for violating the terms of her separation agreement with her former employer. 

It’s hardly a surprise that someone with a penchant for math would also have a penchant for money. This is absolutely the case with Danica McKellar, who loved to play Monopoly as a child. She also used to hide her own money from herself in order to create an emergency cash supply. 

Today, McKellar works to empower girls to view their intelligence as empowering. however, she's said it's an "uphill battle" due to the “instant gratification culture” caused by social media. her assertion? That kids don’t understand the value of investing in themselves in the long run. “I’m here to help kids realize the benefit of that -- the gift they can give themselves that nobody can take away, or ‘unlike’ on a social media page,” she says. 

Despite McKellar’s wealth, she still appears to live frugally. In 2017, she told The Wall Street Journal that she lives with her family in a four-bedroom, two-story house in Los Angeles. Her contentedness shone through in the interview, “It’s a fun house. We want our home to feel lived in and used. We don’t have the biggest backyard, but when everyone is out, I like going on the swing. Sailing back and forth, I feel like I have no responsibilities. For five minutes, my need to control my life is gone. Gravity takes over.”