After 34 years at NASA, Jackson had earned the most senior engineering title available. She realized she could not earn further promotions without becoming a supervisor. She accepted a demotion to become a manager of both the Federal Women's Program, in the NASA Office of Equal Opportunity Programs and of the Affirmative Action Program. In this role, she worked to influence the hiring and promotion of women in NASA's science, engineering, and mathematics careers.
Jackson served for more than 30 years as a Girl Scout leader.[4] In the 1970s she helped African American children in her community create a miniature wind tunnel for testing airplanes.[6][7][4]
Jackson was married on November 18, 1944, to Levi Jackson Sr., a sailor in the U.S. Navy, until his death in 1992.[6][8][9] They had two children, Levi Jackson Jr. and Carolyn Marie Lewis.[6]
Jackson (first row, far right) with the 4'x4' Supersonic Pressure Tunnel staff in 1956[10]Jackson working at the Langley Research Center in 1977
After graduation, Mary Jackson taught mathematics for a year at an African-American school in Calvert County, Maryland.[4] At that time, public schools were still segregated across the South. She also began tutoring high school and college students, which she continued to do throughout her life.[11]
By 1943, she had returned to Hampton, where she became a bookkeeper at the National Catholic Community Center there. She worked as a receptionist and clerk at the Hampton Institute's Health Department. She was pregnant during this time and eventually returned home for the birth of her son. In 1951, she became a clerk at the Office of the Chief Army Field Forces at Fort Monroe.[4][11]
In 1951, Jackson was recruited by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which in 1958 was succeeded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).[6][7][12] She started as a research mathematician, or computer, at the Langley Research Center in her hometown of Hampton, Virginia. She worked under Dorothy Vaughan in the segregated West Area Computing Section.[4]
In 1953, she accepted an offer to work for engineer Kazimierz Czarnecki in the Supersonic Pressure Tunnel. The 4 by 4 foot (1.2 by 1.2 m), 60,000 horsepower (45,000 kW) wind tunnel was used to study forces on a model by generating winds at almost twice the speed of sound.[4] Czarnecki encouraged Jackson to undergo training so that she could be promoted to an engineer. She needed to take graduate-level courses in mathematics and physics to qualify for the job. They were offered in a night program by the University of Virginia, held at the all-white Hampton High School. Jackson petitioned the City of Hampton to allow her to attend the classes. After completing the courses, she was promoted to aerospace engineer in 1958, and became NASA's first black female engineer.[13][7][4] She analyzed data from wind tunnel experiments and real-world aircraft flight experiments at the Theoretical Aerodynamics Branch of the Subsonic-Transonic Aerodynamics Division at Langley.[6] Her goal was to understand air flow, including thrust and drag forces, in order to improve United States planes.[6]
Jackson holding a wind tunnel model in 1977
Jackson worked as an engineer in several NASA divisions: the Compressibility Research Division, Full-Scale Research Division, High-Speed Aerodynamics Division, and the Subsonic-Transonic Aerodynamics Division.[11] She ultimately authored or co-authored 12 technical papers for NACA and NASA.[11][14][15][16] She worked to help women and other minorities to advance their careers, including advising them how to study in order to qualify for promotions.[17]
By 1979, Jackson had achieved the most senior title within the engineering department. She decided to take a demotion in order to serve as an administrator in the Equal Opportunity Specialist field. After undergoing training at NASA Headquarters, she returned to Langley. She worked to make changes and highlight women and other minorities who were accomplished in the field. She served as both the Federal Women's Program Manager in the Office of Equal Opportunity Programs and as the Affirmative Action Program Manager, and she worked to influence the career paths of women in science, engineering, and mathematics positions at NASA.[4][17] She continued to work at NASA until her retirement in 1985.[5]
In 2018, the Salt Lake City School Board voted that Jackson Elementary School in Salt Lake City, Utah, would be renamed for Mary Jackson instead of President Andrew Jackson.[19]
NASA's headquarters building in Washington, D.C. was renamed the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters in a virtual ceremony on February 26, 2021.[20][21][22]
Jackson, Mary W.; Czarnecki, K.R. (1960), Investigation by Schlieren Technique of Methods of Fixing Fully Turbulent Flow on Models at Supersonic Speeds, vol. 242, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Czarnecki, K.R.; Jackson, Mary W.; Monta, William J. (1963), Studies of Skin Friction at Supersonic Speeds (Turbulent Boundary Layer and Skin Friction Data for Supersonic Transports)
Jackson, Mary W.; Czarnecki, K. R.; Monta, William J. (July 1965), Turbulent Skin Friction at High Reynolds Numbers and Low Supersonic Velocities, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Czarnecki, K.R.; Jackson, Mary W. (December 1975). "Turbulent Boundary-Layer Separation due to a Forward-Facing Step". AIAA Journal. 13 (12): 1585–1591. Bibcode:1975AIAAJ..13.1585C. doi:10.2514/3.60582.
^"Levi Jackson Sr". Daily Press. Newport News, Virginia. May 24, 1992. p. 28.
^Daines, Gary (February 8, 2021). "Mary W. Jackson". NASA. Retrieved March 22, 2021.
^ abcdefghijklmMary W. Jackson(PDF), National Aeronautics and Space Administration, October 1979, archived from the original(PDF) on October 23, 2015, retrieved August 16, 2016
^"Mary Winston Jackson". Human Computers at NASA. Macalester College. Retrieved August 16, 2016.
