Short Biography: Mae Jemison

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Mae Jemison 1 Mae Carol Jemison  Mae Carol Jemison Mary Taylor Jones College of Jacksonville Mae Jemison 2 Mae Carol Jemison was born on October 17, 1956 in Decatur, Alabama, the youngest of three children of Charlie Jemison, a maintenance supervisor for a charity organization, and Dorothy (Green) Jemison, an elementary school teacher of English and Math.[1] When Jemison was 3 years old, the family moved to Chicago, Illinois to take advantage of better educational opportunities. By the time she entered kindergarten in 1961 she knew how to read, and she had already decided to be a scientist. “ As a child growing up, Jemison learned…show more content…
She earned degrees in chemical engineering and Afro-American studies in 1977. She was the first female leader of the Black Student Union there. She then enrolled at Cornell University’s Medical College in New York City. Her interest in seeing the world and helping other people led her to volunteer during summer school as a medical worker at a Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand. A grant program also allowed her to conduct health studies in the east African country of Kenya, in 1979. She earned her medical degree from Cornell in 1981. Jemison served in the Peace Corps from 1983 to 1985. A medical officer in the west African countries of Sierra Leone and Liberia, she was in change of the health and safety of Peace Corps volunteers and State Department employees. Jamison also ran disease research projects. After her return to the United States, she worked as a doctor in private practice in Los Angeles, California. While there she took graduate classes in engineering and applied to the astronaut program. Jemison first application was not accepted. But in 1987, after a second application, Jemison became one of fifteen people selected out of nearly two thousand astronaut hopefuls. She was the program’s first black…show more content…
“I’m closer to the stars,” she told them, “somewhere I’ve always dreamed to be .” Jemison is an active public speaker who appears before private and public groups promoting science and technology as well as providing an inspirational and educational message for young people. Jemison uses her platform to speak out on disparities in the quality of healthcare in the U. S. and Third World Nations. We talk about taking proper care of people, but we don’t do it, “Jemison says. We lack the commitment. Martin Luther King was about doing things. He didn’t just have a dream, he got things done. My message is about seeing possibilities and having the courage to work toward them. The most amazing thing to me about technological advancement and design is that African-Americans have continued to be right in the middle and the heart of the center of U-S technological development since we came

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