Mae Jemison is an American engineer and former NASA astronaut, popularly known for being the first black woman to travel into space when she served as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992. She is also one of the most prominent figures of the 21st century, having written several books and making several television appearances.
Biography
Mae Jemison was born on October 17, 1956, in Alabama, United States. Her mother was an elementary school teacher and her father was a maintenance supervisor. As a child, jemison enjoy studying science and was also interested space travels thanks to television show Star Trek and, the portrayal of Lieutenant Uhura further by African-American actress Nichelle Nichols. She also had aspirations of becoming a professional dancer, participating in numerous dancing activities as a teenager.
Jemison attended the Chicago’s Morgan Park High School, where she graduated in 1973. She then got addimited into Stanford University at the age of 16. She was one of the few black students in Stanford University at the time, ultimately resulting to a certain discriminatory experience. At Stanford, Jemison served as head of the Black Students Union. She graduated from Stanford in 1977, receiving a B.S. degree in chemical engineering and B.A. degree in African and African-American studies.
Career
After graduating from Stanford, jemison attended Cornell Medical School. She reportedly struggled between going to medical school or pursuing a career as a professional dancer. During her training in medical school , she traveled to Cuba, to conduct a study funded by American Medical Student Association and to Thailand, where she worked at a Cambodian refugee camp.
Jemison also worked for Flying Doctors stationed in East Africa. She however continued to study dance by enrolling in classes at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. After graduating with an M.D. degree in 1981, she interned at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center in 1982, and worked as a general practitioner for Ross–Loos Medical Group.
Jemison joined the staff of the Peace Corps in 1983 and served as a medical officer until 1985. She was responsible for the health of Peace Corps volunteers serving in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Jemison supervised the Peace Corps’ pharmacy, laboratory, medical staff as well as providing medical care, writing self-care manuals, and developing and implementing guidelines for health and safety issues. She also worked with the Centers for Disease Control helping with research for various vaccines.
NASA and Space travel
After serving in the Peace corps, Mae Jemison returned to the United States, where she established her own private practice. Inspired by the flights of Sally Ride and Guion Bluford in 1983, Jemison applied to the astronaut program in 1987. She was chosen out of over 2,000 applicants for 15 slots in NASA Astronaut Group 12. The Press then covered her as the “first black woman astronaut”.
Jemison’s work with NASA before her shuttle launch included launch support activities at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and verification of Shuttle computer software in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL). On September 28, 1989, she was selected to join the STS-47 crew as Mission Specialist 4 and was also designated Science Mission Specialist, a new astronaut role being tested by NASA to focus on scientific experiments.
Jemison flew her only space mission from September 12 to 20, 1992, becoming the first black woman to travel into space. She was one of the seven-member crew aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour, on mission STS-47, a cooperative mission between the United States and Japan, as well as the 50th shuttle mission. She logged 190 hours, 30 minutes, 23 seconds in space and orbited the earth 127 times. After the mission Jemison resigned from NASA in March 1993 to start her own technological company.
Post-NASA career
Affter resigning from NASA in 1993, Mae Jemison founded The Jemison Group Inc., a consulting firm which considers the sociocultural impact of technological advancements and design. She also founded the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence. She had served on the board of directors of the World Sickle Cell Foundation from 1990 to 1992.
Jemison was also a professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College from 1995 to 2002 where she directed the Jemison Institute for Advancing Technology in Developing Countries. In 1999, she became an Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. She is a also member of various scientific organizations, such as the American Medical Association, the American Chemical Society, the Association of Space Explorers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
In recognition of her accomplishments, Jemison received a number of accolades, including several honorary doctorates, the 1988 Essence Science and Technology Award, the Ebony Black Achievement Award in 1992 and a Montgomery Fellowship from Dartmouth College in 1993. She was also named Gamma Sigma Gamma Woman of the Year in 1990. In 1992, the Mae C. Jemison Academy, an alternative public school in Detroit, Michigan, was named after her.
