NEW YORK — (NEW YORK) -- After a remarkable career spanning nearly 50 years, STEM trailblazer, physicist and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute President Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson is retiring.
In 1973, Jackson graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a doctorate in theoretical elementary particle physics, making her the first Black woman to receive a doctorate in any field from the renowned university. She was also one of the first Black women to receive a bachelor's degree from the school.
Jackson said she looks back on her life through"windows in time" marked by historical events that led her to create some of her own. Just a few years later, the launch of Sputnik 1 intensified the Space Race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. "At MIT, it wasn't always friendly," she said."If I sat at a table alone, no one else would come and join many times, but if I went and joined the table, then people would suddenly be finishing up their meals…and so in that sense, it was very isolating."
"I thought about how quiet I've been as an undergrad. And I felt there was something that I needed to do and should do at MIT to get more African American and minority students in and to become more hospitable for such students. And so in the end, I decided to stay at MIT," Jackson told ABC News.
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