Dr. Mae Jemison to speak August 15 at Spragins Hall.
Dr. Mae Jemison, the first woman of color in space, is slated to be the keynote Leadership Speaker during the Week of Welcome at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of The University of Alabama System.
The Week of Welcome (WOW), August 14-21, is a campus-wide set of programs and activities put on by the UAH Office of Student Life designed to welcome new and returning students to the UAH campus. WOW takes place at the beginning of each semester and offers social, educational and informational programs, as well as the opportunity to interact with other UAH students, faculty and staff.
On Sunday, August 15, Student Life will welcome Dr. Jemison to campus at 2:00 p.m. in Spragins Hall for UAH’s annual First Year Sunday Leadership program. Dr. Jemison will discuss the importance of STEM education in developing the next generation of technical problem solvers and entrepreneurs. The event is open to the entire UAH community (students, staff and faculty).
Dr. Jemison served six years as a NASA astronaut and performed important experiments in material science, life sciences and human adaptation to weightlessness aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour, STS-47 Spacelab J mission in 1992.
An Environmental Studies professor at Dartmouth College, Dr. Jemison worked on sustainable development and technology design with a special emphasis on helping the developing world. Before joining NASA she was the Area Peace Corps Medical Officer for Sierra Leone and Liberia and a general practice physician in Los Angeles.
Dr. Jemison also founded The Jemison Group, Inc. (JG) a technology consulting firm integrating critical socio-cultural issues into the design of engineering and science projects. Examples include satellite technology for health care delivery and providing solar dish Stirling engine electricity to developing countries. JG researches and develops stand-alone science and technology companies, such as the BioSentient Corporation, a medical devices and services organization focused on improving health and human performance.
In 1994 she founded the international science camp, The Earth We Share (TEWS) for 12–16-year-old students from around the world, a program of the non-profit Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence (DJF). From 2011 to 2014, DJF held the TEWS-Space Race in collaboration with the Los Angeles Unified School District, training hundreds of middle school teachers in experiential science education for thousands of middle school students.
Other foundation programs Dr. Jemison has worked with include Reality Leads Fantasy - Celebrating Women of Color in Flight that highlighted women in aviation and space from around the world. She has also been involved in EXPO Inspire, a hands-on public STEM fair. In addition, LOOK UP was announced in September 2017, an international movement to galvanize people worldwide, on a single day, to acknowledge that we are all Earthlings.
Dr. Jemison is Bayer Corporation USA’s national science literacy ambassador. as well as one of the series hosts for National Geographic’s “One Strange Rock” and space operations advisor for its global miniseries, MARS.
She is also a member of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine and is on the board of directors of Kimberly–Clark, the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards and the Texas Medical Center. She was the Founding Chair of the Texas state Product Development and Small Business Incubator Board, Chair of 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. and Valspar Corporation.
The former NASA astronaut is an inductee of the National Women’s Hall of Fame, the National Medical Association Hall of Fame, the Texas Science Hall of Fame and the International Space Hall of Fame, as well as a recipient of the National Organization for Women’s Intrepid Award, the Kilby Science Award and National Association of Corporate Directors’ Directorship 100 most influential people in the boardroom in 2014.
Dr. Jemison is an honorary member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority and the New York Academy of Sciences, among many other honors. She was a featured panelist on the CNBC special “The Business of Science” in 2011, and was one of the teachers on “The Dream School.” Dr. Jemison also authored the True Books series, Find Where the Wind Goes: Moments from My Life on space exploration and was the first real astronaut to appear on the Star Trek TV series.
Dr. Jemison currently leads 100 Year Starship (100YSS), a far-reaching nonprofit initiative with the goal of ensuring the capabilities exist for human travel beyond our solar system to another star within the next 100 years. Through this initiative, she is building a multi-faceted global community to foster the cultural, scientific, social, financial framework and technical commitment to accomplish this mission. The 100YSS vision is intended to be an all-inclusive journey to transform life here on Earth and beyond.
100YSS programs include an annual public conference, NEXUS: Pathway to the Stars: Footprints on Earth; the Canopus Awards for Excellence in Interstellar Writing; the 100YSS Crucibles transdisciplinary workshops to generate new disciplines to disrupt technological and systemic hurdles; and 100YSS True Books to engage elementary students. The 100YSS Way Research Institute seeks to generate leaps that accelerate knowledge, technology, design and thinking, not just for space travel, but to enhance life on Earth as well.
Lastly, Dr. Jemison led the team that won the competitive single-awardee seed funding grant in February 2012 from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
