Former NASA Astronaut, Physician, Engineer, Social Scientist, Author
Mae Jemison will speak during the General Scientific Session on Monday, October 18, and will sign books immediately following her lecture.
Thought leader, entrepreneur, and polymath, Dr. Mae Jemison is at the forefront of integrating the physical and social sciences with art and culture to solve problems and accelerate beneficial innovation.
A NASA astronaut for six years, Dr. Jemison made world history as the first woman of color in space. Aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour, STS-47 Spacelab Japan mission in September 1992, she performed experiments in material science, life sciences, and human adaptation to weightlessness.
Jemison leads 100 Year Starship (100YSS), a bold, far-reaching nonprofit initiative to assure the capabilities for human travel beyond our solar system to another star exist within the next 100 years. Started with a competitive seed-funding grant from DARPA, she is building a multi-faceted global community to foster the cultural, scientific, social and technical commitment, support, and financial framework to accomplish the 100YSS vision—An Inclusive, Audacious Journey (that) Transforms Life Here on Earth and Beyond. The 100YSS Way Research Institute seeks to generate the radical leaps that accelerate knowledge, technology, design, and thinking not just for space travel, but also to enhance life on Earth.
Jemison started The Jemison Group Inc. (JG) a technology consulting firm integrating critical socio-cultural issues into the design of engineering and science projects and supporting the creation and launch of standalone initiatives/companies. Such work has included satellite technology for health care delivery and solar dish Stirling engine electricity generation in developing countries, as well as mobile multi-parameter autonomic nervous system monitoring and training.
An Environmental Studies professor at Dartmouth College, Jemison worked on sustainable development and technology design, particularly for the developing world. Prior joining NASA, she was the Area Peace Corps Medical Officer for Sierra Leone and Liberia responsible for the health care of all the Peace Corps volunteers and the US Embassy personnel in Sierra Leone.
Jemison founded the non-profit Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence (DJF), which created and implemented international science camp The Earth We Share™ (TEWS) programs that has trained training hundreds teachers in experiential science education and thousands of students nationally and world-wide, including 2011 to 2014 TEWS-Space Race in collaboration with the Los Angeles Unified School District. Other foundation programs include Reality Leads Fantasy-Celebrating Women of Color in Flight that highlighted women in aviation and space from around the world; LOOK UP, which focuses people worldwide, to weave a global tapestry of what we individually see, feel, think, love, fear, offer, need and hope as we look up at the sky via unique real time, online platform, the Skyfie™ app; EXPO Inspire, a hands-on public STEM fair; and more.
Jemison is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and is on the boards of directors of Kimberly–Clark, the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards, and NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) External Advisory Council. She was the Founding Chair of the Texas State Product Development and Small Business Incubator Board, Chair the Texas State Biotechnology and Life Sciences Industry Cluster, Chair of the Greater Houston Partnership Disaster Planning and Recovery Task Force, and served on the board of Scholastic Inc., Valspar Corp, GenProbe and the Texas Medical Center. Jemison is an inductee of the National Women’s Hall of Fame, the National Medical Association Hall of Fame, Texas Science Hall of Fame, International Space Hall of Fame, and Honorary member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.
Jemison was the first real astronaut to appear on the Star Trek television series and is a LEGO mini-figure in the LEGO Women of NASA kit. Jemison was a series co-host of National Geographic’s “One Strange Rock” and the space operations advisor for its global miniseries, “Mars.” An author, Jemison recently released the 2nd edition of “Find Where the Wind Goes: Moments from My Life,” for teens alongside the Scholastic True Book series on space exploration.
B.S., Chemical Engineering and A.B., African & Afro-American Studies Stanford University; M.D., Cornell University Medical College.