02/27/2023
Born on August 5, 1946, in Washington, D.C., Dr. Jackson paved the way for caller ID, call waiting, fiber-optic cable, and the touch-tone telephone. Growing up, Jackson studied the circadian rhythms of bees she captured from flowers and shrubs around her home. She arrived at MIT in the fall of 1964 as one of just a handful of Black students, after becoming the valedictorian of her public high school in Washington, D.C. While working on her first physics problem set, she emerged from her room and noticed all the other first-year women on her floor out in a common area, doing theirs together. “It was pretty isolating,” said Jackson of her undergraduate years. But after a while, she told herself, “Well, I do have to hand in these physics problems.” So, she says, “I got myself together and finished the work.” Despite the bigotry she encountered, she remained a quiet student who focused on her work. The assassination of Martin Luther King in April 1968 changed that. She helped organize a group of African-American students that ultimately became the Black Student Union. Jackson would need that kind of resilience to see her through nine years at MIT, as both an undergraduate and a graduate student in physics. She became the first African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. from the Institute—in any field—in 1973.
Dr. Jackson was inducted into the Women in Technology International Foundation Hall of Fame (WITI) in June 2000. WITI recognizes women technologists and scientists whose achievements are exceptional.
