Shirley Ann Jackson
American physicist · United States · On the map · Scientists · Born 1946 · age 80
Shirley Ann Jackson is an African American physicist and the 18th president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She is the first African American woman to earn a doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in Theoretical Elementary Particle Physics.
Shirley Ann Jackson is read about 82 times a day, in 28 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 6 November 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 103 days, one point a day.
Something wrong?A life in dates
Also in Deutsch
Media & music
In their own words 3
We need to go back to the discovery, to posing a question, to having a hypothesis and having kids know that they can discover the answers and can peel away a layer.
I am interested in the electronic, optical, magnetic, and transport properties of novel semiconductor systems.
Never let academics falter; you have to be successful to have authority to champion change
Awards
About this person
She is also the second African American woman in the United States to earn a doctorate in physics.