In 1951, Jackson accepted a position with the Separate West Area Computers at NACA Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, where he was supervised by Dorothy Vaughan. In 1958, she became NASA’s first African-American female engineer.
In 1979, realizing that the glass ceiling was the rule rather than the exception for female professionals at Langley, she volunteered to work as an administrator in equal opportunity, leaving engineering. Embracing the decline, made a final, dramatic career change. Specialist field. After training at NASA Headquarters, she returned to Langley and filled Langley’s Federal Women’s Program Manager position. There, she worked hard to hire and develop the next generation of NASA’s all-female mathematicians, engineers and scientists. Jackson retired from Langley in 1985.
Image credit: NASA/Joel Kovski