This is the first in a series of articles about female role models we can all look up to.
Born in the 1950s, with affirmative action still struggling to bring equal civil rights for African Americans, Mae Jemison decided to dream. She decided she was going to blast off into space.
Having grown up watching the Apollo missions and the moon landings in the ’60s and ’70s, Jemison was not alone in a generation of American children wanting to become astronauts. However, as she grew up, Jemison became more interested in the field of biomedical engineering. She graduated from high school at 16 and promptly got herself admitted to Stanford University.
It was here, at university, that she was hit by the realities of her society. She was one among the minority of African American students on the campus and faced racial abuse. This was not going to hold her back though. She became the president of the Black Students’ Union and, as a keen amateur thespian, put on a number of performances about the African American experience.
Jemison graduated from university with a degree in chemical engineering following which she attended Cornell Medical School where she became interested in international medicine. She studied and did research in Cuba and Kenya as well as getting hands-on experience at a refugee camp in Cambodia. After gaining her medical degree Jemison joined the UN Peace Corps and worked as a medical officer in Sierra Leone and Liberia.
By the time Jemison returned to the United States, Sally Ride had become the first American to go to space. Taking inspiration from her, Jemison applied to the NASA training programme and was among the 15 people selected out of a field of 2000 applicants.
On September 12, 1992, when the space shuttle Endeavour launched into space, Dr. Mae Jemison became the first African American female astronaut. As the medical expert and Mission Specialist, she was responsible for carrying out medical experiments about the effects of weightlessness and motion sickness on the crew and herself.
After resigning from NASA in 1993, Dr. Jemison has worked as a consultant for a number of academic and technological organisations. She also runs foundations that encourage children, especially girls, to take up science as a career and is the head of the 100 Years Starship Project which aims to make interstellar travel possible within the next century.
Dr. Mae Jemison is simply an amazing woman of whom even self-proclaimed science buffs would not have heard; and, frankly, there should be full chapters dedicated to her in modern science books.
Trivia: Dr. Jemison was also the first real astronaut to appear in an episode of Star Trek: Next Generation!
Sources:
Alexander, Kerri Lee. “Mae Jemison.” Women's History, www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/mae-jemison.
“Mae C. Jemison.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 17 Feb. 2021, www.biography.com/astronaut/mae-c-jemison.
“Dr. Mae Jemison.” NASA, NASA, starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/whos_who_level2/jemison.html.
“Meet a Super Scientist!” Scholastic.com, Scholastic, http://teacher.scholastic.com/space/mae_jemison/index.htm.
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