MAE JEMISON - FIRST BLACK FEMALE ASTRONAUT

Mae Jemison, the first African American woman to become an astronaut, has always been an overachiever.

Jemison was born in Alabama but grew up in Chicago. Under the influence of her uncle, she became interested in science. When she was in high school, she was intrigued by biomedical engineering. After graduation in 1973, at the age of 16, Jemison enrolled at Stanford University and graduated with degrees in chemical engineering and African American studies.

After graduating from Cornell University’s medical school in 1981, Jemison became a medical officer in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone and Liberia in West Africa. There, she managed all the health care for the Peace Corps and the U.S. embassy personnel, authored self-care manuals, and worked with the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on research projects, including the development of a hepatitis B vaccine.

After two years, Jemison returned to the United States to become a general practitioner in Los Angeles, California, while also taking graduate-level engineering classes. 

In 1985, Jemison applied to become an astronaut, but NASA delayed the selection of new candidates. Undaunted by the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger the next year, she reapplied. Out of 2000 applicants, NASA chose Jemison to train to become an astronaut.

On September 12, 1992, Jemison became the first African American woman in space when she joined the Space Shuttle Endeavour crew and spent eight days in space. As a science mission specialist, her responsibility was to conduct motion sickness and bone cell experiments on the crew during the mission.

After fulfilling her dream of becoming an astronaut, Jemison became a professor at Dartmouth College, teaching environmental studies. She also started an educational non-profit and a science camp. Jemison is the principal for 100 Year Starship, an initiative to travel beyond our solar system in the next 100 years.

Jemison never planned to be a role model for Black female astronauts, but she did want young girls to see that race and gender don’t have to limit their accomplishments. 

For more information on Mae Jemison, visit:

https://montgomery.dartmouth.edu/mae-c-jemison

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mae_Jemison