MAE JEMISON

Born in Decatur, Alabama, in 1956 and raised in Chicago, Jemison entered Stanford at sixteen, graduating in chemical engineering with a second degree in African and African-American studies, then took her medical degree at Cornell. She trained in dance the whole way through and has said she seriously weighed a dance career against medicine.

She served as a Peace Corps area medical officer in Sierra Leone and Liberia in her mid-twenties, responsible for the health of volunteers and embassy staff, managing pharmacy and lab work and writing care protocols. NASA selected her in 1987.

On 12 September 1992 Jemison flew aboard Endeavour as science mission specialist on STS-47, a cooperative mission with Japan, running experiments on bone-cell loss and motion sickness across 127 orbits. She carried a poster from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and a West African statuette with her, deliberately putting art and heritage into the payload.

She left NASA in 1993 and has since worked on technology and development, taught, and led the 100 Year Starship initiative on interstellar travel.