Mary Jackson

Mary Jackson (; April 9, 1921 – February 11, 2005) was an American aerospace engineer and mathematician at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which in 1958 was succeeded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). She worked at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, for most of her career. She started as a computer at the segregated West Area Computing division in 1951. In 1958, after taking engineering classes, she became NASA's first black female engineer.

After 34 years at NASA, Jackson had earned the most senior engineering title available. She realized she could not earn further promotions without becoming a supervisor. She accepted a demotion to become a manager of both the Federal Women's Program, in the NASA Office of Equal Opportunity Programs and of the Affirmative Action Program. In this role, she worked to influence the hiring and promotion of women in NASA's science, engineering, and mathematics careers.

Jackson's story features in the 2016 non-fiction book Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race. She is one of the three protagonists in Hidden Figures, the film adaptation released the same year. In 2019, Jackson was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. She grew up in Hampton, Virginia, United States of America, where she graduated from high school with the highest honors. They had two children, Levi Jackson Jr. and Carolyn Marie Lewis.

After graduation, Mary Jackson taught mathematics for a year at an African-American school in Calvert County, Maryland. She started as a human computer, at the Langley Research Center in her hometown of Hampton, Virginia. She worked under Dorothy Vaughan in the segregated West Area Computing Section. She worked to help women and minorities to advance their careers, including advising them how to study in order to qualify for promotions. and as the Affirmative Action Program Manager, and she worked to influence the career paths of women in science, engineering, and mathematics positions at NASA.

In 2018, the Salt Lake City School Board voted that Jackson Elementary School in Salt Lake City, Utah, would be renamed for Mary Jackson instead of President Andrew Jackson.

NASA's headquarters building in Washington, D.C. was renamed the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters in a virtual ceremony on February 26, 2021.

Awards, achievements and honors

In 1958, Mary Jackson became the first female African-American to become an engineer Apollo Group Achievement Award, 1969 which was accepted by family members at the 2024 ceremony On November 6, 2020, a satellite (ÑuSat 17 or "Mary", COSPAR 2020-079J) named after her was launched into space In Fall 2020, the Tunnel Boring Machine for the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel Expansion was named "Mary" in her honor

Publications