Born: 1963 (Brooklyn, New York)
Biography:
Aprille J. Ericsson-Jackson (born April 1, 1963) is an American aerospace engineer. Ericsson-Jackson is the first African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Howard University and the first African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. in Engineering at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC).
Early life
Aprille Ericsson was born and grew up in the Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, and later moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to attend high school at the Cambridge School of Weston. She has said that her interest in astronautics manifested at an early age; she recalled watching the Apollo missions when she was in the first grade. In the summer of 1980 as a junior in high school, she attended MIT UNITE (now called MITES, Minority Introduction to Engineering & Science), an engineering outreach program for minority students at MIT. She earned her Bachelor’s of Science in Aeronautical/Astronautical Engineering at MIT in 1986. She was then awarded a master’s degree in engineering from Howard University in 1992, followed by a doctorate in mechanical engineering, becoming the first African-American woman to do so.
Career and Teaching
While attending graduate school at Howard University, Ericsson accepted an Aerospace Engineer position at the NASA Goddard Flight Center in Maryland. Ericsson has served as an engineer, technologist, instrument lead, and project and program manager at NASA for nearly 30 years, lending her technical and managerial expertise to projects including the James Webb Space Telescope, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), and the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2).
Currently, she is the new business lead for NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Instrument Systems and Technology Division, which connects scientists and project managers with the instrument technologies they need to accomplish their missions. In this role, she fosters partnerships between government agencies and universities, industry, and small businesses.
Ericsson has worked in various groups within NASA, including the Robotics group and the Guidance Navigation & Control Discipline. Her work in the latter helps spacecraft stabilize and manage their orientation and position during missions. She has also worked on missions that send spacecraft to other bodies within the solar system. Projects to which she has contributed early in her career include satellites that monitor the Earth; one such project, the Tropical Rain Measuring Mission, provides data on the atmospheric phenomena El Niño and La Niña and their effects on crop productivity. As Project Engineer, she supported development for the laser instrumentation for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which was launched in 2009.
Dr. Ericsson-Jackson helped manage science instruments such as the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS), which uses lasers to measure ice sheet depth and the height of other geophysical features on Earth. She has also contributed to technology development for the James Webb Space Telescope, which is set to be the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. Furthermore, she has been involved in the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) mission, which aims to measure polar ice thickness and elevation changes.
Apart from her work at NASA, Ericsson-Jackson is also an advocate for STEM education, particularly for women and minorities. She actively promotes the importance of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers.
Awards:
– NASA Goddard Honor Award for exceptional technical achievement
– National Technical Association Corporate Technologist of the Year
– Howard University Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award
Ericsson-Jackson’s groundbreaking achievements as an aerospace engineer and her dedication to promoting STEM education demonstrate her incredible impact on the fields of science and engineering. Her determination and perseverance have paved the way for future generations of women and minorities in these fields, making her an inspiring figure in women’s history.