peopleBorn in Decatur, Alabama and raised in Chicago, she entered Stanford University at the age of sixteen on a scholarship, graduating with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and fulfilled the requirements for a B.A. in African and Afro-American studies. She earned her doctorate in medicine at Cornell University Medical College.
Prior to joining NASA in 1987, Dr. Jemison worked in both engineering and medicine. She was a General Practitioner in Los Angeles with the INA/Ross Loos Medical Group. She then spent two and a half years (1983-1985) as Area Peace Corps medical officer for Sierra Leone and Liberia in West Africa. On her return to Los Angeles, she worked as a General Practitioner with CIGNA Health Plans of California.
Dr. Jemison served as a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronaut for six years. As the science mission specialist on the STS-47 Spacelab J flight, a US/Japan joint mission, she conducted experiments in life sciences, material sciences and was a co-investigator of the Bone Cell Research experiment.
Dr. Jemison resigned from NASA in March 1993 and founded The Jemison Group, Inc. The Jemison Group, Inc. was established to focus on the beneficial integration of science and technology into our everyday lives. Company projects have included consulting on the design and implementation of solar thermal electricity generation systems for developing countries and remote areas and the use of satellite-based telecommunications to facilitate health care delivery in West Africa.
Most recently, Dr. Jemison developed a new business, BioSentient Corporation, a medical technology company that creates and markets mobile equipment worn to monitor the body’s vital signs and train people to respond favorably in stressful situations. BioSentient was created in July 1999 by The Jemison Group, Inc., which holds the exclusive license from NASA to commercialize this exciting new technology. Originally designed to control motion sickness, BioSentient’s technology presents significant opportunities across a wide spectrum of health and human performance areas.
Dr. Jemison also serves as Bayer Corporation's national science literacy advocate and is a member of the Board of Directors of Kimberly Clark. As an A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University, Dr. Jemison manages to stay connected to her Alma Mater though this program which brings select individuals to the campus to supplement the activities of permanent faculty. Dr. Jemison is a former professor of Environmental Studies at Dartmouth College. Between 1995–2002, she directed the Jemison Institute for Advancing Technology in Developing Countries, S.E.E.ing the Future: Science, Engineering and Education, an institute project and workshop, is a White Paper compiled and edited by Dr. Jemison that discusses a framework for prioritizing governmental funding of science and engineering research that was released in Spring 2002. She was the moderator for an IEEE-USA Technical Symposia Space Technologies for Disaster Mitigation and Global Health.
Dr. Jemison was elected into the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine in 2001. She serves on the Board of Directors for Scholastic, Inc. and Valspar Corporation and the Texas Governor’s State Council for Science and BioTechnology Development. Dr. Jemison has received numerous awards and honors including: induction into the National Women's Hall of Fame; selection as one of the People magazines' 1993 "World's 50 Most Beautiful People"; Johnson Publications Black Achievement Trailblazers Award; the Kilby Science Award; National Medical Association Hall of Fame; selection as a Montgomery Fellow, Dartmouth College; Texas Science Hall of Fame; Rotary Club Chicago’s ROTARY/One Award; a number of honorary doctorates, including Doctor of Humanities from Princeton University.
