Encyclopedia world biography shirley ann jackson

American physicist (born 1946)

This article is about the scientist and university administrator. For the writer, see Shirley Jackson.

Shirley Ann Jackson, FREng (born August 5, 1946) is an American physicist, and was the 18th president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

She is the first African American woman to have earned a doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Theoretical Elementary Particle Physics,^[1] and the first African American woman to have earned a doctorate at MIT in any field.^[2] She is also the second African American woman in the United States to earn a doctorate in physics.^[3]

Biography

Jackson was born in Washington, D.C., and attended Roosevelt Senior High School.

After graduation in 1964, she enrolled at MIT to study theoretical physics, earning her B.S. degree in 1968.^[4][5]

Jackson elected to stay at MIT for her doctoral work, and received her Ph.D.

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