Shelia Nash-Stevenson | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Alma mater | Alabama A&M University |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Marshall Space Flight Center Hughes Aircraft Company |
Shelia Nash-Stevenson is an American physicist and engineer. Nash-Stevenson was the first Black woman in Alabama to earn a PhD in physics. [1]
Nash-Stevenson was born and raised in Lawrence County, Alabama. [2] She graduated from Austin High School at the age of sixteen. [3] She studied science and electronic and electrical engineering at Alabama A&M University in 1981. [4] [5] She was the first person to graduate from the Alabama A&M University physics masters program, where she was a NASA Fellow. [3] She worked at Marshall Space Flight Center. Her professor, M. C. George, encouraged her to enter a PhD program. [3] She was the first African-American woman to earn a doctorate in physics at the Alabama A&M University in 1994. [2] During her postgraduate studies she had two children. [3] She is three-times magna cum laude. [2] At the time she was one of fewer than twenty African-American women with a physics PhD in the United States. [2] [6] She was a member of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. [5] She worked on photon avalanche upconversion. [7]
Nash-Stevenson joined the United States Army Ballistic Missile Defense Systems Command. [2] She holds a patent for an optical fiber holder. [2] She joined Nichols Research Corporation as a scientist, then Hughes Aircraft Company as a technical researcher. [4] She joined the instrumentation group in Marshall Space Flight Center's avionics lab, where she worked for nearly ten years. [3] She was awarded a NASA Fellowship in 1998, and eventually joined the space craft and vehicle systems group. [3] [8] During her fellowship she returned to Alabama A&M University as a professor. She was at Kennedy Space Center to watch the STS-95 launch. [8] She spoke at the 2013 Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics. [9]
In 2013 Huntsville, Alabama recognised her efforts for the community. She is the only African-American to serve on the Madison City School Board [2] [10] and she's a member of the Madison Rotary Club. [4] [11]
She won the Modern Figure award of NASA and was selected to attend the premiere of Hidden Figures. [2] [12] She took part in several panel discussions and interviews after the film was released. [3] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] She gave the convocation talk at Elms College in 2017. [18] In 2018 she was honoured by the WEDC Foundation Women Honoring Women program. [19] She was featured in the AT&T Alabama African-American calendar. [20]
Nancy Jan Davis is a former American astronaut. A veteran of three space flights, Davis logged over 673 hours in space. She is now retired from NASA.
Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University is a public historically black land-grant university in Normal, Huntsville, Alabama. Founded in 1875, it took its present name in 1969. It was one of about 180 "normal schools" founded by state governments in the 19th century to train teachers for the rapidly growing public common schools. It was one of 23 established to train African Americans to teach in segregated schools. Some closed but most steadily expanded their role and became state colleges in the early 20th century and state universities in the late 20th century. AAMU is a member-school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University Historic District, also known as Normal Hill College Historic District, has 28 buildings and four structures listed in the United States National Register of Historic Places.
Creola Katherine Johnson was an American mathematician whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. crewed spaceflights. During her 33-year career at NASA and its predecessor, she earned a reputation for mastering complex manual calculations and helped pioneer the use of computers to perform the tasks. The space agency noted her "historical role as one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist".
Christine Darden is an American mathematician, data analyst, and aeronautical engineer who devoted much of her 40-year career in aerodynamics at NASA to researching supersonic flight and sonic booms. She had an M.S. in mathematics and had been teaching at Virginia State University before starting to work at the Langley Research Center in 1967. She earned a Ph.D. in engineering at George Washington University in 1983 and has published numerous articles in her field. She was the first African-American woman at NASA's Langley Research Center to be promoted to the Senior Executive Service, the top rank in the federal civil service.
The West Computers were the African American, female mathematicians who worked as human computers at the Langley Research Center of NACA from 1943 through 1958. These women were a subset of the hundreds of female mathematicians who began careers in aeronautical research during World War II. To offset the loss of manpower as men joined the war effort, many U.S. organizations began hiring, and actively recruiting, more women and minorities during the 1940s. In 1935, the Langley Research Center had five female human computers on staff. By 1946, the Langley Research Center had recruited about 400 female human computers.
Dorothy Jean Johnson Vaughan was an American mathematician and human computer who worked for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and NASA, at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. In 1949, she became acting supervisor of the West Area Computers, the first African-American woman to receive a promotion and supervise a group of staff at the center.
Hidden Figures is a 2016 American biographical drama film directed by Theodore Melfi and written by Melfi and Allison Schroeder. It is loosely based on the 2016 non-fiction book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly about three female African-American mathematicians: Katherine Goble Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, who worked at NASA during the Space Race. Other stars include Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Jim Parsons, Mahershala Ali, Aldis Hodge, and Glen Powell.
Margot Lee Shetterly is an American nonfiction writer who has also worked in investment banking and media startups. Her first book, Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race (2016), is about African-American women mathematicians working at NASA who were instrumental to the success of the United States space program. She sold the movie rights while still working on the book, and it was adapted as a feature film of the same name, Hidden Figures (2016). For several years Shetterly and her husband lived and worked in Mexico, where they founded and published Inside Mexico, a magazine directed to English-speaking readers.
Mary Jackson was an American mathematician and aerospace engineer at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which in 1958 was succeeded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). She worked at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, for most of her career. She started as a computer at the segregated West Area Computing division in 1951. In 1958, after taking engineering classes, she became NASA's first black female engineer.
Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Who Helped Win the Space Race is a 2016 nonfiction book written by Margot Lee Shetterly.
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Rudy Lee Horne was an American mathematician and professor of mathematics at Morehouse College. He worked on dynamical systems, including nonlinear waves. He was the mathematics consultant for the film Hidden Figures.
Tiera Guinn Fletcher is an American aerospace engineer. She is a designer and structural analyst for NASA's Space Launch System.
Dorothy Estheryne McFadden Hoover was an American physicist and mathematician. Hoover was a pioneer in the early days of NASA. Originally one of the first black women hired at Langley as a human computer, Hoover would eventually become a published physicist and mathematician. Hoover is one of the first black women to be listed as a co-author on NASA research publications. Her research supported the development of America's first jet fighter, the Sabre. Hoover's accomplishments were featured in Margot Lee Shetterly's bestselling book, Hidden Figures.
Marion Lee Johnson is an American mathematician whose work was crucial to the landing of the Apollo 11 mission. She was a mathematician on the Boeing/NASA team, where she worked in preparing data for the vehicle impact trajectories. Her perfect score over 20 successful missions earned her a place on the Apollo/Saturn V Roll of Honor.
K. Renee Horton is an American physicist and an Airworthiness Deputy at NASA. She was the first black person to receive a PhD in material science and engineering with a concentration in physics at the University of Alabama. She is an advocate for black women in STEM fields and for disability rights.
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