On Wednesday, February 22, members and guests of the UNT community will have the opportunity to hear a presentation from Dr. Mae C. Jemison at the UNT Distinguished Lecture Series sponsored by the UNT Division of Student Affairs.
Presentation at UNT Distinguished Lecture Series
Where: Union 314
When: Wednesday, February 22, 2017 – 8:00pm – 9:00pm
How much: Students: Free; Student Guests: $5; Faculty/Staff: $8; Community: $10
For ticket information, call 1 (950) 565-3355
Sponsor: Student Affairs-Distinguished Lecture Series
This event is open to the public.
Website: Purchase Tickets
Contacts: Ellysia Dierker | ellysia.dierker@unt.edu | 940-565-3355
A Brief Biography
Dr. Jemison graduated from high school when she was only 16 years old. After majoring in Chemical Engineering and African American Studies at Stanford, she enrolled at Cornell to study medicine, and simultaneously took classes in modern dance at the Ailey School. Later she built a dance studio in her home, and she has choreographed and produced several modern jazz and African dance shows over the years.
In between classes she traveled, did research, and provided health care in Kenya, Cuba, and as a volunteer in a Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand. After graduation Jemison joined the Peace Corps, where she worked as a medical officer in Liberia and Sierra Leone. She also helped the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) research various vaccines.
In 1987, Dr. Jemison became the first African-American woman selected by NASA to be an astronaut. In 1992 she joined the crew of the STS-47 space shuttle mission and became the first woman of color in space. The STS-47 Space Shuttle Mission Report is available for download from the NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS), and a replica of the STS-47 patch is available for purchase from NASA.
After this mission, she resigned from NASA to start her own technology design and consulting company, The Jemison Group, Inc., and pursue her interest in exploring how the design of new technologies interacts with society and culture to influence our daily lives.
She also founded the nonprofit Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence, named after her late mother, a Chicago schoolteacher, to promote her mother’s teaching principles and foster critical thinking skills, science literacy, individual responsibility, and other standards of personal excellence in schoolchildren. The premiere project of the Foundation has been The Earth We Share™ (TEWS) international science camp, where teens are encouraged to explore solutions to various global problems.
Her company BioSentient Corporation, founded in 1999, develops and markets equipment worn to monitor a person’s vital signs and train people to respond favorably in stressful situations.
Dr. Jemison serves on the board of directors of several agencies, has taught environmental studies at Dartmouth, has been an A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences’ National Academy of Medicine.
Dr. Jemison has appeared on numerous television shows over the years, sometimes as host, sometimes as guest. In 1993 she starred as Lieutenant Palmer in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Second Chances,” becoming the first real astronaut to play an astronaut on Star Trek. Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura in the original Star Trek series and was an early inspiration to Jemison, visited the set while Jemison was filming her scenes. This episode is available on DVD from the UNT Media Library.
Do You Want to Know More?
Numerous NASA publications related to Dr. Jamison can be accessed online by going to https://www.nasa.gov/ and searching her name.
Here are a few of the resources at the UNT Libraries that provide information about Dr. Jemison and her myriad accomplishments:
From the UNT Libraries Government Documents Collection in the Eagle Commons Library
- STS-47 Crew Patch Decal (NASA)
From the Juvenile Collection on the Third Floor of Willis Library
- Mae Jemison, by Luke Colins
- Mae Jemison, by Sonia W. Black; photo research by Sylvia P. Bloch
- Mae Jemison: The First African American Woman Astronaut, by Liza N. Burby
From the UNT Media Library:
- African American Lives, a film by Kunhardt Productions
- Makers: Women Who Make America: Volume 2, Episode 3, “Women in Space” (Produced and directed by Michael Epstein; produced by Sara Wolitzky)
From UNT Libraries Online Resources:
- Heroic Leadership: An Influence Taxonomy of 100 Exceptional Individuals, by Scott T. Allison and George R. Goethals
From the Curriculum Materials Collection on the Third Floor of Willis Library:
- Bookshop Reading, by Carmel Crévola, Mark Vineis, Jill H. Allor, and others (Grade 3 Reader, No. 44 is devoted to the life and career of Mae Jemison.)
- Moving into English, by Alma Flor Ada (The Grade 2 leveled library books include “Mae Jemison and Her Dream,” by Meish Goldish.)
Article by Bobby Griffith.
Official NASA photo of Mae Jemison from Wikimedia Commons.
