Looking for a way to break down gender stereotypes? Here is your example….
by Maria Badanina and Aroa Tato
Annie J. Easley was a computer scientist, mathematician, and a rocket scientist who worked for the Lewis Research Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). She was a leading member of the team which developed software for the Centaur rocket stage, and she was one of the first African-American women in the field.
“You’re never too old, and if you want to, as my mother said, you can do anything you want to, but you have to work at it..” — Easley
Life of this woman wasn’t easy since its very beginning. She was raised by a single mother, in the US in the 30s, when educational and career opportunities for African-American children were very limited. She didn’t have a lot of possibilities in life, but Annie’s mother motivated her to work hard and pursue her dreams. As Easley said in an interview for Sandra Johnson:
“My mother was my greatest role model. She still is. She encouraged me daily. I’m so grateful that I had my mother as a mother. She was my biggest cheerleader.” — Easley
Easley’s mother encouraged her to get a good education and from the fifth grade through high school, she attended Holy Family High School, and was valedictorian of her graduating class. Easley’s path to NASA was not a direct one. She wanted to be a nurse, but when she was about fifteen or sixteen, she decided to study pharmacy because it looked like a good field. She chose to go into the School of Pharmacy at Xavier University, and she had every intention of continuing in it, but a change in location changed those plans. After a couple of years of studying pharmacy, she got married and moved to Cleveland, where she discovered that local School of Pharmacy had shut down and she couldn’t continue her studies. One day, in the newspaper, Annie read about the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the ancestor of NASA. There was an article written by two sisters who worked as human computers, the same human computers that are featured in the 2016 Hidden Figures movie. She had no idea what it was or what projects they worked on, but the occupation that the article described fascinated her enough to drive to the agency the next day and leave a job application there. Two weeks later she started working there, and she changed her interest in pharmacy for a passion for mathematics, programming and space exploration.
She didn’t have any university degree when she began to work for the NACA. She started to work like a human computer, analyzing problems and doing calculations by hand of complex mathematical functions like logarithms, exponentials and square roots. In relation to her contribution to the world of technology, it is noteworthy that she developed and implemented a code that was used for the analysis of alternative technologies. As a curious fact, we can add that thanks to her code, energy conversion systems were identified and used in the first hybrid cars.
“When people have their biases and prejudices, yes, I am aware. My head is not in the sand. But my thing is, if I can’t work with you, I will work around you. I was not about to be so discouraged that I’d walk away. That may be a solution for some people, but it’s not mine. So yes, I’m sure, I, like many others, have been judged not on what I can do, but on what I look like. So yes, I’m aware that that has happened. But, as I said, I would not let that get me down”. — Easley
After this words, we don’t have any doubt that she was using her huge strength in order to fight against the prejudices, which are not only affect because of she was a woman, but also by her skin color. Another important milestone of Annie was accepting her reality. She never stopped trying to be the best version of herself and exploiting her maximal potential. Surely we can’t all be the next Annie Easley in the development of new code or participate in the process of sending rockets to outer space, but we can keep in mind her strength when we have some obstacles in our professional career.
