"This lady who looks nothing like me has taken me on as the thing to parody in her life!" Stewart responded jovially.
After the lecture, Stewart held a press interview in the Green Room of Memorial Hall.
Stewart, 59, who graduated from Barnard College in New York before embarking on her first career as a Wall Street stockbroker, said that if she had to do it again she would study in Cambridge, but not at Harvard.
"If I could go back to school--forgive me--but I would be at MIT!" Stewart said, adding that she enjoys astronomy and math.
Later in the evening, a post-lecture reception and dinner was held in the Charles Hotel. Stewart schmoozed with students and faculty about topics such as the martinis she used to have at lunch and the proverbial "glass ceiling."
"To hear her say that 'the glass ceiling' was never even a term she had heard of or had come up against was impressive," said Alexandra B. Beale '01. "She is clearly a dynamic woman who has never let anything stand in her way."