The Dickinsonian sat down with NASA astronaut and Poitras Gleim lecturer, Mae Jemison, to talk about her experiences as the first African-American woman in space, her achievements and the inclusivity of scientific spaces. The interview is below. 

The Dickinsonian: How did being a woman of color inform or influence your experiences at NASA?

Mae Jemison: I don’t really have another perspective so the only thing I can really do is compare against. I think sometimes we hang around and think about all the time but that’s not what I really want to talk about. And the reason why, is because I think it’s not so much influenced my perspectives, for me it’s always, ‘What did I bring to the table?’ and ‘What did I do with my place at the table?’ So, for me it’s the perspectives I brought, how did it influence what I did at NASA and what I did afterwards.

For me it’s always what perspectives you bring. So, having grown up on the South side of Chicago in the 1960’s, knowing that there were no women in the U.S. Astronaut Program, because there was a woman, Valentina Tereshkov, in 1963, a Russian. Knowing that there were no men of color even in the astronaut program it bothered me severely as a little girl but I just assumed that I would go up in space. But bringing that perspective of having know[n] that people did not necessarily think that space exploration was connected to them that had an influence on how I saw things and how I thought it was really important for me to try to make things accessible for them and that’s really influenced my work going forward…NASA is a microcosm of the United States. I can leave it at that. So, there are some things that are really good and easy and [there are] absolutely wonderful and remarkable people and there are j*ck*sses. Basically, that’s what you find in the world. And your task is to figure out the difference and to figure out if you are one of the j*ck*sses and how to correct it. But I think the major issue…is really around your confidence in yourself. Very, frequently people are also sometimes surprised when you have confidence in their skill sets…and I always felt that by the time I got to NASA, I had been around the block a bunch of times.

First of all, having been a doc[tor] and working at a county USC Medical Center as a Resident Intern was pretty intense and work[ing] as a PeaceCorp Medical Officer in West Africa was fairly intense, having been in Cambodia in refugee camps… So, I sort of had a little bit of toughness. I think those are many of the issues when you start to face things and perhaps you don’t know but recognizing that a lot of people don’t know things and they make it up as they go.

TD: Can you talk a little bit about your experiences as the first African-American woman in space. What are the pressures that you face and how do you deal with that pressure of being that person?

MJ: First of all, I would have gone into space if there had never been a single d*mn person there, I’d have been like ‘I want to go. I’ll go’ Or if there had been thousands of people up there, I just wanted to be in space. So there is a personal aspect of it,   like I just want to do this and I want to be involved. And then there is the aspect in many ways, people do pin expectations onto you some people pin their irritation that you’re around and so what you have to do is figure out where you are and find your center. It’s usually the small things that get in the way, those things that are inside of you. So, for me, it was really about finding out who I was. Again, my biggest  task was to make this accessible.

So, my background was Africana studies and I was a  chemical engineering as an undergrad[uate], then I went to medical school and I’ve done a lot of things that were very integrated in terms of the arts and the sciences and social sciences. So, for me it was looking at that perspective and finding my place at the table.

Everybody wants you to talk about those major issues you face and 25 years later you’re like ‘I can’t stay in the same d*mn space all the time.’ Some of the pressures is, yes, you want to talk about things and I do like working with people and trying to put together projects but you know people have expectations of you always doing things 100 percent and other people want you to fail or have this expectation that you’re going to be a certain way. And that has probably been an issue. Who do they want you to be and I still steadfastly think that you have to be yourself. But you use your place. You use your place. So that means, not restraining yourself from talking about gender, ethnicity and those issues in the sciences and not being afraid of talking about how the social sciences and the arts blend in and how so much of what we do has to do with social expectations and why a country does what it does one way or the other.

Well, what I’m going to talk about tonight [Tuesday, April 10] is this project called Look Up which is really about trying to make sure that get people connected to the world . The major issues that I see in the world as we look around talk about science is going to solve this or tech[nology] is going to solve this, none of these things will be solved if we do not think of ourselves as earthlings, if we don’t feel connected. So Look Up is about one day in 2018 in August for 24 hours around the world to look up and record what we see because the sky connects us. I think that for me what’s come out of being in the Astronaut Program is blending with everything else I do and trying to  figure out a path to get people places that perhaps they would not feel comfortable in otherwise.

TD: What achievement are you the most proud of outside of your career in science?

MJ: You know, I think people always ask for the most, for me, again, it’s the things that nobody really cares about. It’s like I was afraid of heights and getting over that fear and doing parachute training, it was you know running uphill for a number of miles and I just couldn’t believe that I could do it. Those are the kinds of things sometimes that are the most critical for me, the most important things for me. because nobody else is necessarily looking at that. I think sometimes it’s also, when I go back I look at… first working on science-literacy back in 1994, before there was a STEM and putting together the science program and keeping it going. Working  with 100 Year Starship is starting to change people’s perspectives about how do you push on things and now I find everybody in space exploration is now talking about inclusiveness and there’s going to be a conference on inclusiveness, there’s going to be this issue about how we push on things, changing the language and sometimes you do that very subtly…Most of the time you have to do it subtly because if you push too hard, if you preach, most people won’t pay any attention to you, which is the reason we want to do something like Look Up where we can just be the conduit and folks can maybe help fill in the pieces.

So, the things that…bring a smile to my face are those things that I sort of doubted I could do. I never doubted I could do space, I never doubted that I could do science or be an engineer, I never doubted those things. But I did doubt, I could run uphill for a couple of miles, that was a whole other ballgame. I know we’re supposed to talk about dance tonight [Tuesday, April 12] but doing choreography, you know, my senior year in college I put together this dance production called Out of Shadows. That was incredible to do, the whole dance production, the costumes, design, the choreography and stuff..These are stuff that nobody would ever,..you know they want me to say ‘giving a talk at the U[nited] N[ations] but it’s…the little things that no one’s paying attention. Where it had to come from inside of you.