Donna Shirley made space history in the 1990s as the first woman to manage a NASA program. At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, the veteran aerospace engineer led both the Mars Exploration Program and the team that built Sojourner, the first rover to land on the Red Planet. That climaxed the Mars Pathfinder mission on July 4, 1997. Here are 11 facts about Shirley’s life and career. 1. Donna Shirley was eager to escape her small-town Oklahoma roots. Shirley was born in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, on July 27, 1941, to a doctor and a former horseback riding instructor, both of Chickasaw heritage. She struggled to fit in while growing up in the small town of Wynnewood, Oklahoma. In elementary school, she got into fist fights with boys and preferred games involving cowboys or detectives instead of princesses or dolls. When Shirley was 10, she announced that her career goal was to build planes.