Annie Easley

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Annie Easley

Annie Jean Easley (born April 23, 1933 in Birmingham , Alabama , † June 25, 2011 in Cleveland , Ohio ) was an African-American computer scientist, mathematician and rocket scientist. She worked for the Lewis Research Center of NASA and its predecessor NACA . She was a senior member of the Centaur upper stage development team and the first African-American woman to work as a computer scientist for NASA.

Early life and education

Annie Easley was born in Birmingham . Before the civil rights movement in the United States, educational and career opportunities for African American children were very limited . African American children were educated separately from white children, and their schools were often inferior to white schools. Easley's mother taught her that while she could become anything, she had to work hard to get it. She worked hard for a good education and attended Holy Family Cristo Rey High School in Birmingham. Easley was the farewell speaker for her high school class.

After high school she went to New Orleans to attend the Xavier University of Louisiana Pharmacy to study. In 1954 she briefly returned to her hometown. Due to racist laws , Easley had to pass a literacy test and pay a poll tax to vote. One of the examiners noted that she was studying at Xavier University, so Easley only had to pay two dollars. Easley helped other African Americans prepare for the test.

In 1963 there was race rioting in Birmingham as a result of the Birmingham Campaign; a year later poll taxes were abolished. In 1965, the Voting Rights Act abolished the literacy test. Easley married soon after and moved to Cleveland in an effort to continue her education. Unfortunately, the university there abolished pharmacy shortly before and there were no comparable alternatives.

Careers at NACA and NASA

Annie Easley at work

In 1955 she read an article in a local magazine about twins working as " computers " for the NACA. The next day she applied for the job. Within two weeks she got the job as one of four African American women out of 2500 applicants. She began her career as a mathematician and computer scientist at the NACA's Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in Cleveland. She continued her education and earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Cleveland State University in 1977 . Then she attended several advanced training courses at NASA.

Her 34 year career spanned developing and implementing computer code that performed numerous tasks. Their computer codes were used to identify energy conversion systems. In 1989 or 1991 Easley retired.

Easley's work in the Centaur project served as the technological basis for the development of space shuttles and satellites . Their work contributed to the Cassini-Huygens mission launched in 1997 .

Annie Easley was interviewed by Sandra Johnson in Cleveland in 2001. The 55-page interview is on display at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Johnson Space Center Oral History Program . The interview includes topics such as the civil rights movement, the history of the Glenn Research Center and Johnson Space Center, and space travel .

Selected works

  • Joseph J. Ninsiger, Raymond K. Burns, Annie J. Easley: Performance and Operational Economics Estimates for a Coal Gasification Combined-Cycle Cogeneration Powerplant . Tech Memo 82729, NASA, Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio March 1982, pp. 31 .
  • AF Kascak, AJ Easley: Bleed Cycle Propellant Pumping in a Gas-Core Nuclear Rocket Engine System . Report No. NASA-TM-X-2517, NASA, Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio March 1972.
  • AJ Easley, AF Kascak: Effect of Turbulent Mixing on Average Fuel Temperatures in a Gas-Core Nuclear Rocket Engine . Report No. NASA-TN-D-4882, NASA, Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio November 1968.

See also

literature

  • US Department of Energy: Black Contributors to Science and Energy Technology . Washington DC 1979, p. 19 .
  • Mills College: The ACM-Mills Conference on Pioneering Women in Computing . Oakland, California May 7, 2000.
  • Mary Mace Spradling: In Black and White: A Guide to Magazine Articles, Newspaper Articles and Books Concerning More than 15,000 Black Individuals and Groups. 3. Edition. Gale Research Co., Detroit 1980, pp. 289 .
  • Annie Easley: American Computer Scientist . In: World of Computer Science . 2002, p. 210 .
  • Sara Pendergast, Tom Pendergast: Contemporary Black biography. profiles from the international Black community . Thomson Gale, Detroit 2007, ISBN 978-1-4144-2920-5 .
  • Wini Warren: Black women scientists in the United States . Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana 1999, ISBN 978-0-253-33603-3 .

Web links

Commons : Annie Easley  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ANNIE JEAN EASLEY. The Plain Dealer, June 28, 2011; Archived from the original on July 12, 2018 ; accessed on July 12, 2018 (English).
  2. ^ A b Thomas Kindra: Annie Easley, Computer Scientist and Mathematician. NASA , March 7, 2017, accessed July 12, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Annie Easley: American Computer Scientist . In: World of Computer Science . 2002, p. 210 .
  4. ↑ Sandra Johnson: Annie J. Easley; NASA Oral History. August 21, 2001, accessed July 12, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Easley, Annie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Easley, Annie Jean (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH April 23, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Birmingham, Alabama
DATE OF DEATH June 25, 2011
Place of death Cleveland