Mary W. Jackson

Mary W. Jackson graduated with dual degrees in mathematics and physical science from Hampton Institute before working as a teacher and, later, joining NASA's predecessor NACA in 1951 as a research mathematician in the segregated West Area Computing unit alongside Dorothy Vaughan and Katherine Johnson.

After two years, Jackson was offered a role working directly with engineers in the agency's supersonic wind tunnel, where her hands-on data analysis so impressed her supervisor that he encouraged her to become an engineer herself. Because engineering training courses were held at a segregated Virginia high school, Jackson had to petition the City of Hampton for special permission to attend the whites-only night classes required for the qualification.

In 1958, having completed the coursework, Jackson became NASA's first Black female engineer, going on to author or co-author more than a dozen research papers on aerodynamics over a two-decade engineering career. In 1979, concerned by the limited career advancement available to women at NASA, she took a demotion to become the agency's Federal Women's Program Manager, working to improve hiring and promotion prospects for women and minorities across the organisation until her retirement in 1985.