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Mary Jackson became NASA's first Black woman engineer in 1958. To qualify, she had to petition the City of Hampton, Virginia, for permission to attend evening classes held at a school for white students only.

Mary Jackson

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The story behind the card

Jackson joined the West Area Computing unit at NACA's Langley laboratory in 1951, as a 'human computer' doing calculations by hand. In 1953 she went to work for the engineer Kazimierz Czarnecki in the Supersonic Pressure Tunnel, a wind tunnel that blasted models with air at almost twice the speed of sound, and he urged her to train as an engineer. The courses she needed were run by the University of Virginia at Hampton High School, which was for white students only, so she asked the city for permission and won it. She wrote or co-wrote 12 technical papers, many on the thin layer of air flowing next to an aircraft's surface. In 1979, having reached the most senior engineering title open to her, she took a demotion to run programmes helping women and minorities advance at NASA. NASA named its Washington headquarters after her in 2020.

Türkçe oku
Mary Jackson 1958'de NASA'nın ilk Siyah kadın mühendisi oldu. Bunun için gereken akşam dersleri yalnızca beyaz öğrencilerin okuduğu bir okulda verildiğinden, derslere girebilmek için Virginia'daki Hampton kentinden özel izin istemek zorunda kaldı.

Jackson 1951'de NACA'nın Langley laboratuvarındaki West Area Computing birimine, hesapları elle yapan bir “insan bilgisayar” olarak girdi. 1953'te mühendis Kazimierz Czarnecki'nin yanında, modelleri ses hızının neredeyse iki katı hızla esen havaya tutan bir rüzgâr tüneli olan Süpersonik Basınç Tüneli'nde çalışmaya başladı. Czarnecki onu mühendis olmak için eğitim almaya yüreklendirdi. Gereken dersleri Virginia Üniversitesi, yalnızca beyaz öğrencilerin okuduğu Hampton Lisesi'nde veriyordu; Jackson kentten izin istedi ve bu izni aldı. Çoğu uçağın yüzeyine değerek akan ince hava katmanı üzerine olmak üzere 12 teknik makale yazdı ya da yazılmasına ortak oldu. 1979'da, kendisine açık en yüksek mühendislik unvanına ulaşmışken daha düşük bir göreve geçmeyi kabul etti ve NASA'da kadınların ve azınlıkların ilerlemesine yardım eden programları yönetti. NASA, 2020'de Washington'daki genel merkez binasına onun adını verdi.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Mary Jackson (engineer)
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