Why do we love Mae?

When an African-American woman has become an Ivy League-educated physician, a chemical engineer, a teacher, and a scientist, what else is there left to become? When she has blazed trails for women and people of color through academia and the medical establishment, and traveled to Sierra Leone and Liberia with the Peace Corps, where is there left to go? For Georgia-born, Chicago-raised Dr. Mae Jemison, the answer is to become an astronaut and to go to outer space. On September 12, 1992, aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor, Mae became the first woman of color in space. Aboard as NASA's first Science Mission Specialist on the STS-47 Space lab J flight, a US/Japan joint mission, she conducted experiments in life sciences, material sciences, and was co-investigator in the Bone Cell Research experiment.

Not one to rest on her laurels, Mae's 1993 resignation from NASA was only the beginning of another phase in her stunningly inspirational career. She has added to her impressive resume the titles of businesswoman, launching two successful companies that marry her interests in technology, the environment, health care, education, and third-world development; educational philanthropist, establishing The Earth We Share, an international science camp that teaches children how to tackle problems of global scope; and author, writing a collection of autobiographical anecdotes for teenagers in 2001 (it was released in paperback in January of this year). The scope of Mae's achievements prove possibility for all those seeking to boldly go where no one has gone before.

Biography:

Born - October 17, 1956
Decatur, Alabama

Achievements:

• 2001 - Publishes Find Where the Wind Goes: Moments From My Life
• 1993 - Ebony's 50 Most Influential women
• 1993 - Turner Trumpet Award
• 1993 - Montgomery Fellow, Dartmouth
• 1993 - Kilby Science Award
• 1993 - Inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame
• 1993 - People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People in the World"
• September 12, 1992 - Basts off on the Space Shuttle Endeavor (STS-47)
  and is the first woman of color to go into space
• 1992 - Johnson Publications Black Achievement Trailblazers Award
• 1992 - dedicates the Mae C. Jemison Science and Space Museum, Wright Jr. College, Chicago
• 1991 - Honorary Doctorate of Science, Lincoln College, PA
• 1991 - Honorary Doctor of Letters, Winston-Salem, NC
• 1991 - McCall's 10 Outstanding Women for the 90's
• 1991 - Pumpkin Magazine's (a Japanese Monthly) One of the Women for the Coming New Century
• 1989 - Gamma Sigma Gamma Women of the Year
• 1988 - Essence Award
• 1987 - Accpeted into NASA's astronaut training program
• 1983 -1985 - Served as Area Peace Corps Medical Officer for Sierra Leone and Liberia in West Africa
• 1981 - Recieves a Doctorate in Medicine from Cornell University
• 1977 - Earns chemical engineering degree from Stanford University (she also fulfilled the requirements for a B.A. in African and Afro-American Studies)