In this image from February 1974, Mary W. Jackson (second from right in front) is shown with her colleagues in the High Speed Aircraft Division at the Langely Research Center in Virginia. Jackson worked in the Theoretical Performance Group, High Speed Aircraft Division, Office of Director for Aeronautics.
On Friday, Feb. 26, 2021, the NASA Headquarters Building in Washington D.C. was officially renamed after Jackson, the agency’s first African American female engineer.
Jackson started her NASA career in the segregated West Area Computing Unit of the agency’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Jackson, a mathematician and aerospace engineer, went on to lead programs influencing the hiring and promotion of women in NASA’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers. In 2019, she was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
View the Mary W. Jackson image gallery.
View images from the renaming ceremony on Flickr.
See the Black History Month gallery.
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Image Credit: NASA