Jackson, Trachette Levon

Impact on the world

A pioneer of mathematical oncology, Jackson builds differential-equation and computational models connecting molecular-level cancer biology — tumor-induced blood vessel growth, cancer stem cell behavior, drug resistance — to clinical treatment outcomes, work aimed at optimizing chemotherapy dosing and scheduling for individual patients; in 2003 she became the second African American woman, after Kathleen Okikiolu, to win a Sloan Research Fellowship in mathematics, and in 2010 received the Blackwell-Tapia Prize honoring mathematicians who advance minority participation in the field. She founded the Marjorie Lee Browne Scholars Program at the University of Michigan in 2011, using a master's-to-PhD pipeline that has produced multiple doctorates among underrepresented students, and directs the university's M-Sci STEM retention initiative.

Life & background

Born July 24, 1972, to a military family that relocated frequently, Jackson discovered her aptitude for mathematics in a summer calculus course in Mesa, Arizona, that brought her to the attention of Arizona State University mathematics professor Joaquín Bustoz Jr.; she earned a BS in mathematics from Arizona State in 1994, then an MS (1996) and PhD (1998) in applied mathematics from the University of Washington, with a dissertation on two-step cancer chemotherapy. After postdoctoral work at the University of Minnesota's Institute for Mathematics and its Applications, the Environmental Protection Agency, and Duke University, she joined the University of Michigan faculty in 2000 and was promoted to full professor in 2008. Her honors include the Etta Z. Falconer Award (2006), the inaugural class of Association for Women in Mathematics Fellows (2017), recognition as a Mathematically Gifted & Black Black History Month Honoree (2017), election as a SIAM Fellow (2021) for both her cancer-modeling research and her work advancing underrepresented minorities in science, and the University of Michigan's University Diversity and Social Transformation Professorship (2020). She continues to run a long-standing summer math-and-biology course for high school students through the Michigan Math & Science Scholars program.

Sources

1. The HistoryMakers; National Cancer Institute; Quanta Magazine; Mathematicians of the African Diaspora (SUNY Buffalo)