Mae Jemison

Mae Carol Jemison was born on October 17, 1956, in Decatur, Alabama, and grew up in Chicago, where she developed early passions for both science and dance. Watching Nichelle Nichols play Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek helped her imagine a place for herself among the stars. She entered Stanford University at sixteen and graduated with a degree in chemical engineering, then earned her medical degree from Cornell. As a young physician she served as a Peace Corps medical officer in Sierra Leone and Liberia, overseeing health care for volunteers and staff. Inspired in part by Sally Ride's spaceflight, she applied to NASA and, after the Challenger disaster delayed selection, was chosen as an astronaut in 1987, becoming the first African-American woman admitted to the astronaut corps.

Jemison flew a single mission, STS-47, launched September 12, 1992, aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour. It was a cooperative flight between the United States and Japan, carrying the Spacelab-J laboratory module packed with life-science and materials-science experiments. As a science mission specialist over the eight-day flight, Jemison conducted research that included studies on bone-cell development and on the effects of weightlessness and motion sickness, and she was a co-investigator on experiments examining the loss of bone tissue in orbit. When Endeavour reached space, she became the first African-American woman and the first woman of color to travel beyond Earth. Reflecting her love of the arts and her heritage, she carried a poster from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and a flag of the Organization of African Unity aboard the flight.

Jemison left NASA in 1993 to pursue a broad vision that bridged science, technology, and society. She founded a technology company and a foundation, taught at Dartmouth College, and established The Earth We Share, an international science camp for young students. That same year she became the first real astronaut to appear on Star Trek, playing a small role on Star Trek: The Next Generation, a full-circle nod to the character who had once inspired her. In more recent years she has led the 100 Year Starship initiative, a long-horizon effort to make human interstellar travel achievable within a century. Now retired from spaceflight, Jemison, an inductee of the National Women's Hall of Fame, continues to work as a physician, engineer, entrepreneur, and one of the most prominent advocates for STEM education among girls and underrepresented communities.