On International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2024, ICARDA's Dr. Hafssa Kabbaj and Dr. Anna Backhaus discuss empowering women in Agricultural Research
Portrait of the NASA astronaut, Mae Carol Jemison.
Alamy Stock Photo
US astronaut, doctor and engineer Mae Jemison became the first Black woman to go into space in 1992. She was one of seven crew aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour, on a mission named STS-47.
The youngest of three children, Jemison was born in Decatur, Alabama, but moved to Chicago, Illinois, at the age of three. Partly inspired by a love of
Star Trek, she aspired to go into space and was sure she would get there. “As a little girl… I always assumed I would go into space,” she said in a 2017 interview. “Let me make sure that’s clear: I just always assumed, despite the fact that the US hadn’t sent any women up there, or people of colour, that I was going to go.” Little did she know then that she would also one day become the first real astronaut to appear in an episode of