Jackson, Mary
1921-2005 · Contribution: 1950s-1980s
Aerospace engineer
Aerospace engineering research at NASA
Portraits are AI-generated interpretations, not photographs.
Quick facts
- Born
- 1921, Hampton, Virginia
- Active since
- 1951
- Category
- Technology & Engineering
- Best known for
- NASA's first Black female engineer
Impact on the world
Jackson broke the engineering color and gender line at NASA, then spent her later career opening the agency's doors wider for other women and minorities.
An alternative history
What Would the World Look Like Without It?
One contribution. Many possible consequences. No single-person origin story.
Imagine this selected contribution absent, not the person or the entire field. The areas below are reflection prompts related to this discipline, not verified chains of direct dependency.
Sources
- Source lookupFind
NASA (Mary W. Jackson)
Exact source links open the cited record. Source lookups help locate legacy references whose original records did not include a direct URL.
4 more sources and references are available to members.
Related visionaries
Johnson, Katherine
1918-2020
Orbital mechanics calculations for NASA spaceflight
Vaughan, Dorothy
1910-2008
Electronic computing and FORTRAN programming at NACA/NASA Langley; taught herself and her staff FORTRAN to prepare the center's transition from human to machine computing; headed the programming section of the Analysis and Computation Division and contributed to the Scout Launch Vehicle Program
Darden, Christine
1942-
Sonic boom minimization research for supersonic aircraft design
Easley, Annie
1933-2011
Computer programming for NASA energy and rocket research