Astronomy and Space
Annie Easley
Annie Jean Easley (April 23, 1933 – June 25, 2011) was an African American computer scientist who contributed significantly to the beginning iterations of NASA's rocket technologies. Easley was born in 1933 in Birmingham, Alabama, and was raised by a single mother. Segregation disallowed Annie from many normal job opportunities that others of different color and gender might get, but her mother strived for her to have a good education nonetheless. She attended Holy Family High School for most of her schooling life, culminating in her graduating as valedictorian. From there, Easley enrolled at Xavier University in New Orleans to study pharmacy. Her interest in the subject waned from her initial excitement, and she returned to Birmingham briefly in 1945 to vote but was subjected to the poll tax. Her college experiences helped her to encourage other women to overcome some of the voting restrictions. Eventually, Easley would get married and move to Cleveland, Ohio but could not secure a pharmacy job after finding out the area did not have many available. She read an article in the paper about a mathematician opportunity in NASA. Following that reading, her career started as a NASA engineer and spanned decades, inspiring many women of color and outreach programs to support women in STEM fields. Her innovation in programming technologies, energy-conversion, and shuttle launches made her a significant part of NASA’s history and addressed a major pain point they had at the time: lack of interdisciplinary mathematicians and programmers. The work she did spanned all aspects of her life, from her previous degrees to her newly learned languages and work of battery cells all contributed greatly to NASA’s project Centaur launches and paved the way forward for future iterations of space shuttles. Additionally, her work in outreach programs for young innovators and mathematicians was instrumental in breaking down gender barriers for STEM.
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