Most people wouldn't describe their college application process as simply as Mae Jemison described applying to become an astronaut:
"I always wanted to go into space so I applied to NASA and was accepted."
Jemison is a part-time professor at Dartmouth who is teaching a course entitled "Teaching Technology and Sustainable Development" this summer.
What about the other part of her time, you might ask?
Well, for starters there is her experience with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration where she "worked as a person that got the space shuttle ready to launch at Kennedy Space center for awhile, worked as one of the folks that helped to verify the software that runs the shuttle and helped design experiments for shuttle flights" and finally became the first black woman in Space on September 12, 1992.
While in space she investigated semiconductor crystals, how to prevent de-conditioning of the human cardiovascular system in space and intravenous fluid therapy in space.
Jemison's experiences before the six years she worked for NASA would be a lifetime full of experience for many others.
After entering Stanford University at 16 she graduated with majors in Chemical Engineering and African Afro-American Studies. She went on to receive a Doctorate of Medicine from Cornell Medical School in 1981.
When she had finished an internship in Los Angeles, Jemison headed to Africa for two-and-a-half years to work as a Peace Corps medical officer in Sierra Leone and Liberia.
In Africa she was "struck by the level of happiness. Here it seems to be external and material. In other places happiness is internal. They are content with being human."
It was also here that she first became interested in combining different disciplines and comprehensive problem solving.
"I liked very, very primary medicine. I liked doing my own lab work and such. But then I had this dichotomy because I liked developing technologies as well," Jemison said.
When she returned to the U.S. she became a General Practitioner in Los Angeles while she "caught up" with her engineering studies in night school and simultaneously applied for a position at NASA.
Additionally, Jemison has appeared as a transport officer on 'Star Trek: the Next Generation', and was one of "People Magazine's" 1993 50 Most Beautiful People.
Add to this her induction into the Women's Hall of Fame, her receiving of the Kilby Science Award, her Johnson Publications Black Achievement Trailblazers Award, her hosting and consulting work on the Discovery Channel's "World of Wonder," and the feature of her that appeared on the PBS documentary "The New Explorers: Endeavor" and you have a resume that could land you the internship you need for next winter without a problem. Probably two of them.
But it is obvious to anyone who meets the very modest and down-to-earth Jemison that it is not her accomplishments and awards that interests her most, but instead her efforts to help others.
Last year at Dartmouth, Jemison organized an international science camp called the Earth We Share; this year the camp was held at the School of Minds in Golden, CO.
The program promotes an idea that Jemison is very interested in fostering not only in the camp's 12-16 year-olds, but in people world-wide -- that of science literacy.
Jemison says the camp helps to answer the question "how do we get everybody with a certain level of science information so they can fully participate in the world?"
The program's students -- from Barbados, Ireland, Korea, England and all around the U.S. -- work with problems of global dilemmas.
Now in its fifth year, the four week residential program is free to all students.
"In the year coming up we're going to be changing the curriculum up so that it can be used in traditional programs" so that we might begin to see it in high school programs such as those most Dartmouth students are familiar with, Jemison said.
"Science literacy is necessary for everyone. I consider the best thing you can get out of a science education is critical thinking and problem solving skills," Jemison said.
The Earth We Share students use these skills to "build information onto a framework so its easier to retain," Jemison said.
"We give them one problem. They don't have the answer and they work with teachers who don't have the answer. But they own the learning process," Jemison said.
The Earth We Share is sponsored by the Jemison Group, Inc. which is located in Houston and teaches students the importance of merging disciplines to solve problems in teams.
Jemison's strong belief that the social sciences cannot exist without physical science in real life is also a founding tenant of the Jemison Institute, dedicated to bringing appropriate, advanced technologies to developing nations.
The institute, founded in 1995, is now working with the U.S. Department of Energy to "develop a framework for sustainable energy development between the U.S. and Africa," Jemison said.
The Institute works to bring people together to share relevant information by "putting together round-table discussions that bring together the stake holders in energy development," including people as seemingly diverse as representatives of industry and villagers who would actually be using the energy.
"It's not enough to say 'Oh wow, I have a wonderful idea and I'm sitting here in Hanover New Hampshire and I know how to solve problems in Brazil!' You have to have people from those countries around as well," Jemison said.
Always modest, Jemison insists her role is only in bringing people together who can benefit from each other.
"What I can do is maybe help be a catalyst. It's not my sweat and effort that is going to make things better. I can bring people together to bring information to bear," Jemison said.
It is this merger of the social and physical sciences that Jemison is so intent on integrating into people's learning.
"I've always thought that more people need to be less afraid of science," Jemison said.
By educating people about the sciences and how they intermix, Jemison hopes to eliminate the public view that you are either a scientist or a politician, and the two cannot mix.
Quite to the contrary, it is their intermixing that is necessary to solve problems.
"Technologies don't come out of the air fully formed, predestined to exist. It's who we are as a society that decides how we use our information, our resources. The more people you have understanding that we have a say over that as a society the better results we can get," Jemison said.
