“For we think back through our mothers if we are women.”
-Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
Her future shone as brightly as the infinite stars in the sky did. Little did her mother know that the future she’d create, discover and pave would be along with the stars! Books particularly science books would take her to the brief start of evolution, the dinosaurs’ existence and the cosmos with its entanglement of stars and planets united by the gravitational pulls. It was the beauty of the beyond that was surreal to her.
At 8 years old, her mother would enrol her for ballet classes, the complexity of the dynamics involved in ballet exposed her to learning in a challenging environment. She graduated with honours at just 16 years old. In 1977, she graduated from Stanford University with a BSc in Chemical Engineering and a BA in African and Afro-American studies. In an interview with The Des Moines Register in 2008, Jemison said that it was difficult to go to Stanford at 16 but that her youthful arrogance may have helped her; she asserted that some arrogance is necessary for women and minorities to be successful in a white male dominated society. At Stanford, Jemison served as the head of the Black Students Union. Her mother Dorothy Jemison, a teacher, advised her to be a doctor first as she could pursue dancing anytime. She attended Cornell University’s Medical School in New York and graduated in 1981 with a MD degree. Jemison spent the summer between her second and third year of medical school in Kenya in East Africa. Her travel was supported through a study grant from the International Travelers Association and student loan money. While there, she worked for the African Medical Education and Research Foundation (AMREF), formerly known as the Flying Doctors. They travel to remote areas in East Africa to provide health services, such as surgery, to people who might otherwise go without. Jemison performed a community health survey and diagnosis and assisted with a British surgeon in a hospital. While in Nairobi, she helped with community medicine projects in the low-income area of Kawangware. She completed her residency in California. After completing her residency, she hopped on a plane and travelled to Thailand to participate in efforts to improve global healthcare and medical aid. It was a learning experience like no other. At twenty-six years old, she became the Area Peace Corps Medical Officer for Sierra Leone and Liberia. Mae applied for the NASA space program in 1985 probably inspired by women who loved to trail-blaze like her around that time. The unfortunate explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger meant that she’d have to reapply and was accepted in 1987. She was one of the fifteen people chosen for the program, out of over 2,000 applications. She was selected for NASA Astronaut Group 12.
She received her first mission on the STS-47 crew as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour. On September 12, 1992, Jemison and six other astronauts rocketed into space for their mission. With this successful launch, Mae Jemison became the first African American woman in space.
Jemison served on the board of directors of the World Sickle Cell Foundation from 1990 to 1992. In 1993, she founded The Jemison Group Inc., a consulting firm which considers the sociocultural impact of technological advancements and design. Jemison also founded the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence and named the foundation in honour of her mother. She’s a strong advocate of encouraging children to be part of the science community. One of the projects of the foundation is The Earth We Share, a science camp for students aged 12 to 16. Founded in 1994, camps have been held at Dartmouth College, Colorado School of Mines, Choate Rosemary Hall and other sites in the United States, as well as internationally in South Africa, Tunisia, and Switzerland. The Dorothy Jemison Foundation also sponsors other events and programs, including the Shaping the World essay competition, Listening to the Future (a survey program that targets obtaining opinions from students), Earth Online (an online chatroom that allows students to safely communicate and discuss ideas on space and science), and the Reality Leads Fantasy Gala.
Mae Jemison posing for the space shuttle photograph.
Sources: https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/mae-jemison, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mae_Jemison, https://youtu.be/EVzLQ07i5nA?si=SbubJRWJVt_CufEV
Scriveners Online© 