Doctor who made her name as the first African-American in space: Who is Mae Jemison?

Her full name is Mae Carol Jemison, she was born on October 17, 1956, in Decatur, Alabama. She was born the youngest of three children to her father, Charlie Jemison, a caregiver at a charity, and her mother, Dorothy Green Jemison, an English and math elementary school teacher. Living with her family, first in Woodlawn and later in the Morgan Park neighborhoods, Jemison decided at a young age that she wanted to study science and go into space one day. Jemison studied nature and human physiology to learn more about science. Her interest in science was supported by both her parents.

Beginning ballet at the age of 8, Jemison entered high school at the age of 12, where she joined the cheerleading team and the Modern Dance Club. At the same time, Jemison, who had a great love for dance from an early age, learned African and Japanese dance styles as well as jazz and modern dance. As a child, Jemison dreamed of becoming a professional dancer and was featured as a background dancer on West Side Story at the age of 14.

After graduating from Morgan Park High School in Chicago in 1973, Jemison enrolled at Stanford University. With very few African-American students in her classes, Jemison continued to face discrimination from her teachers here. Jemison served as president of the "Black Students League" at the university and was involved in the choreography of a musical and dance production called 'Out of the Shadows'. In her final year of college, she had to choose between going to medical school or becoming a professional dancer. She graduated from Stanford in 1977 with a degree in chemical engineering. While in college, she pursued related research, considering her childhood interest in space and considered applying to NASA.

Jemison attended Cornell School of Medicine and continued to study dance throughout her years, enrolling in classes at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. After graduating in 1981, she interned at Los Angeles County General Hospital in 1982 and began working as a general practitioner at California Ross–Loos Medical Group. Jemison joined the Peace Corps in 1983. Here she was a paramedic until 1985, she.

After returning to the United States, Jemison decided to settle in Los Angeles, California. Entering private practice in Los Angeles, Jemison began taking graduate-level engineering courses. After the space flights of Sally Ride and Guion Bluford in 1983, she was inspired to apply to the astronaut program. In October 1985, Jemison first applied to NASA's astronaut training program. Then in 1987, she reapplied and was selected by NASA as one of fifteen. Astronaut Group 12 became the first group to be selected after the "Challenger" was destroyed. The Associated Press news agency introduced Jemison as "the first black female astronaut" in 1987. In 1989, CBS referred to Jemison as one of the country's "best eligible bachelors" on the television show "Best Catches." 

Jemison's work with NASA prior to launching the shuttle included launch support activities at the Florida headquarters and verification of the Shuttle computer software in the lab. Selected to join the STS-47 team as Mission Specialist 4 on September 28, 1989, Jemison was commissioned as "Science Mission Specialist," a new astronaut role tested by NASA to focus on scientific experiments.

Jemison made her only space mission as one of the crew on the Space Shuttle Endeavor on mission STS-47, a joint mission between the United States and Japan, from September 12-20, 1992. Jemison managed to record 190 hours, 30 minutes, 23 seconds in space while orbiting the earth 127 times. Jemison took with her a poster from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater on his space journey.

STS-47 included the "Spacelab Japan" module, a joint mission between the United States and Japan involving life science and materials processing experimentation. Jemison and Japanese astronaut Mamoru Mohri were trained to use "Autogenic Feedback Training Exercise" (AFTE), a technique that uses two different trainings to help patients monitor and control their physiology as a possible treatment for movement.

In this module, Jemison tested the "Fluid Therapy System", a set of procedures and equipment for producing water for injection. She was then tasked with using the water from the previous step to produce a saline solution in space using IV bags and a mixing method. She was also a co-investigator of two bone cell research experiments. Another experiment she took part in was to encourage female frogs to spawn, fertilize eggs, and then see how tadpoles thrive in zero gravity.

In March 1993, after returning from space, Jemison resigned from NASA with the intention of starting her own company. Jemison was on the board of the World Sickle Cell Foundation from 1990 to 1992. In 1993, "The Jemison Group Inc.", a consulting firm that takes into account the sociocultural impact of technological developments and design founded. She also founded the foundation "Dorothy Jemison Foundation of Excellence" and named the foundation in honor of her mother. Among the foundation's projects was "The Earth We Share", a science camp for students aged 12-16. In addition, she has hosted many events and programs, including essay contests, survey programmes, events for communicating and discussing ideas.

Jemison was a professor of environmental studies at the research university "Dartmouth College" from 1995 to 2002. Strongly advocating for science education and minority students' interest in science, Jemison has always been a member of various scientific organizations such as "American Medical Association", "American Chemical Society", "Association of Space Explorers" and "American Association for the Advancement of Science". showed.

In 1999, Jemison, who founded "BioSentient Corp", was licensed to commercialize "AFTE", the technique he tested on himself during STS-47. In 2012, Jemison bid and won for the DARPA "100 Year Starship project" with the "Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence". The foundation received large monetary grants for its further work, and the new organization retained the "100 Year Starship" organization name. Jemison is the current director of "100 Year Starship".

In 2018, she partnered with companies called Bayer Crop Science and the National 4-H Council for an initiative called "Science Matters", which aims to encourage young children to understand and follow agricultural sciences.

Personal life

Having established a dance studio in her home, Jemison has choreographed and produced many modern jazz and African dance performances. Jemison has her first book, "Find Where the Wind Will Go" (2001), a memoir she wrote for children. In her book, she describes her childhood, time spent at Stanford, the Peace Corps, and as an astronaut. The School Library Journal made the stories about her previous life more appealing. The "A True Book" series of four children's books published in 2013 was co-written with Dana Meachen Rau. Each book in the series has had a "Find the Truth" challenge, and the answers to the right or wrong questions are revealed at the end of the story.

A "Star Trek" fan, Jemison appeared in 1993 as Lieutenant Palmer in an episode of the science fiction television series "Star Trek: The Next Generation." Thus, she became the first real-life astronaut to appear in "Star Trek." From 1999 to 2005, Jemison was appointed "Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large" at Cornell University.

An active speaker in front of private and public groups promoting science and technology, Jemison hosted and technically consulted the science series "World of Wonder", which aired on the Discovery Channel from 1994 to 1998. In 2006, Jemison appeared in "African American Lives," a PBS television mini-series that follows the family histories of eight famous African Americans using historical research and genetic techniques.

Jemison appeared on the "Red Dress Heart Truth" fashion show, dressed by designer Lyn Devon during 2007 New York Fashion Week to help raise money to fight heart disease. In 2017, toy company LEGO released the "Women of NASA" set featuring minifigures of Jemison, Margaret Hamilton, Sally Ride and Nancy Grace Roman. A quote from Jemison was also given in the Google Doodle dated March 8, 2019 (International Women's Day).