high-energy theory has given her international recognition.Shirley A. Jackson was born in 1946. In 1973, she became the first Black woman to graduate with a Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There were few women and fewer Black women at MIT, but Shirley resolved she would succeed anyway. She says:"I feel fortunate that I never had to think about whether a woman or a Black could be a scientist until I was in the middle of it."
After graduating from MIT, she became a research associate at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Then she was a
visiting scientist at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva, Switzerland. She has worked at AT&T/Bell
Labs since 1976. She researches the nature of matter and how it behaves. She lectures and teaches at MIT and other
universities. She lectured at the NATO International Advanced Study Institute in Antwerp, Belgium in 1982. Her research
on high-energy theory has given her international recognition.
