About Mary Jackson (engineer)
Mary Jackson was an American 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. In 2019, Jackson was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. After completing the courses, she was promoted to aerospace engineer in 1958, and became NASA's first black female engineer.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.