Ширли Энн Джексон: Американ физигі және қоғам қайраткері

American physicist (born 1946)
the scientist and university administrator

Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, (born August 5, 1946) is an American physicist, and was the 18th president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She is the first African American woman to have earned a doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Theoretical Elementary Particle Physics, and the first African American woman to have earned a doctorate at MIT in any field. In 2002, Discover magazine recognized her as one of the 50 most important women in science. At the NRC, she had "ultimate authority for all NRC functions pertaining to an emergency involving an NRC licensee".

On July 1, 1999, Jackson became the 18th president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). She was the first woman and first African American to hold this position. Since her appointment to president of RPI, Jackson has helped raise over $1 billion in donations for philanthropic causes. On December 4–5, 2009 Jackson celebrated her tenth year at RPI with a "Celebration Weekend," which featured tribute concerts by Aretha Franklin and Joshua Bell among other events.

In February 2020, Jackson joined the Nature Conservancy Global Board. She is expected to be serving on this board until October 2029. Board Chair Tom Tierney says, "To successfully take on the most pressing environmental challenges facing us, TNC needs people with ambition and big ideas." Jackson received awards for the years 1976 and 1981 as one of the Outstanding Young Women of America. In 2008 she became the University Vice Chairman of the US Council on Competitiveness, a non for profit group based in Washington, DC. In 2009, President Barack Obama appointed Jackson to serve on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, a 20 member advisory group dedicated to public policy. In 2019, the American Physical Society Forum on Physics and Society awarded her the Joseph A. Burton Forum Award. In 2021, she was the recipient of the Hans Christian Oersted Medal from the American Association of Physics Teachers.

Dr. Shirley Jackson is married to Dr. Morris A. Washington, a physics professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and they have one adult son.