2009 Speaker Bio

Mae C. Jemison blasted into orbit aboard the shuttle Endeavour on September 12, 1992 as the first woman of color to go into space. Now the founder and president of two technology companies, the space flight was just one in a series of accomplishments for this dynamic woman.

Born in Decatur, Alabama and raised in Chicago, she entered Stanford University at the age of sixteen on a scholarship, graduating with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and an A.B. in African and Afro-American studies. She earned her doctor in medicine at Cornell University Medical College.

Prior to joining NASA in 1987, Dr. Jemison worked in both engineering and medicine. She was a general practitioner in Los Angeles, California, and then spent two and a half years (1983-1985) as Area Peace Corps medical officer for Sierra Leone and Liberia in West Africa.

Dr. Jemison served as a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronaut for six years. As the science mission specialist on the STS-47 Spacelab J flight, a US/Japan joint mission, she conducted experiments in life sciences.

Dr. Jemison resigned from NASA in March 1993 and in 1994, Dr. Jemison founded the nonprofit Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence. The Earth We Share, a program of the foundation is an annual international science camp. Students from around the world, ages 12 to 16, work together to solve current global dilemmas, like "How Many People Can the Earth Hold?" The four-week residential program builds critical thinking and problem solving skills through an experiential curriculum developed by Dr. Jemison.

Dr. Jemison is a former professor of Environmental Studies at Dartmouth College.She was elected into the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine in 2001, and in 1999, she was selected as one of the top seven women leaders in a Presidential Ballot national straw poll conducted by The White House Project.

Dr. Jemison's first book, Find Where the Wind Goes: Moments From My Life, autobiographical anecdotes about growing up, was published in Spring 2001.