Written by Jenna Williams
The 1980’s were a revolutionary time at NASA; Sally Ride became the first woman to go to space, the Challenger rocket exploded, and Aprille Ericsson Jackson was breaking into science. Aprille was an aerospace engineer and instruments manager at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center for over twenty years, and now works as an advocate for women in science. In the year of 1986, she earned her Bachelors’ of Science in Aeronautical/Aerospace Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She then got a masters’ in engineering from Howard University and became the first African American woman to graduate from Howard with a Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering. She’d become the first African American woman at NASA to receive a Doctorate of Engineering.
Jackson grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and attended high school at the Cambridge School of Weston in Massachusetts. Her love for science manifested at a young age, beginning when she watched the Apollo missions in the first grade. In eighth grade, she won second place in the science fair, building her first ever science instrument. In the summer of 1980, her junior year, she attended an engineering outreach program at MIT, now known as MITES—Minority Introduction to Engineering & Science.
Early on in her career, Jackson worked on satellites that model the Earth. One of these was the Tropical Rain Measuring Mission, which measured Tropical Rain from El Niño and La Niña and its influence on crop productivity. She’d go on to work on spacecraft orientation and stabilization, as well as Missions which send spacecraft to other bodies in our Solar System. One of these was the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, for which she was a Project Manager; this craft has been orbiting the moon for 14 years. She was project manager on the ICESat-2 Atlas—the Ice Cloud, and Elevation Satellite—which measures Antarctic and Greenland Ice sheets and how they contribute to sea-level rise and global warming. As of 2014 she accepted the role of Deputy to the Chief Technologist of the Applied Engineering and Technology Division at NASA. In 2016, she was inducted into the Washington D.C. Hall of Fame for Science and Technology.
But beyond her intellectual prowess, Aprille Ericcson-Jackson is a revolutionary advocate. She feels obligated to “continue to help spur the interest of minorities and females in the math, science and engineering disciplines.” By both lecturing and serving on advisory boards at universities, advising pre-college programs in the sciences, and reviewing National Science Foundation grants, Jackson continues to encourage diversity in Science. She’s taught at Howard University and Bowie University, and now advises students at MIT and Howard. Through this outreach she’s been awarded the Washington Award for engineering achievements that advance the welfare of mankind, the NASA Goddard Honor Award for Excellence in Outreach, and a Science Trailblazers award from the Black Engineers of the Year Award Conference.
Jackson has advocated that there is no success in science without diversity; At her induction into the Hall of Fame, she addresses the importance of diversity in STEM. “The prospect that the ethnic and racial composition of our STEM force will resemble the diversity of the U.S. population is a must,” Says Jackson. “Discrimination affects us all. The U.S. cannot afford to leave out the fresh perspective of more than 50 percent of the population by discriminating against women and minorities. Inclusion of women and minorities is a must.”
Of all the things we can learn from Jackson, her main message is that we can, and must, and will succeed through hard things. Jackson says that “As minorities and women, we are constantly combating negative perceptions. By making a highly uncommon, positive contribution to society, we will change the negative perceptions about our race in general. We must change the perceptions, the attitudes, and the environmental state of society.” And most of all, that everybody can, and should, reach for the stars. If anything should never be understated, it’s that we all have the ability to “Consider, embrace, and drive change.”
Sources:
https://www.silveredge.com/dr-aprille-ericsson-delivers-inspirational-talk-at-engineering-week-2016/
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