Her computer applications have been used to identify energy conversion systems that offer the improvement over commercially available technologies. Her energy assignments included studies to determine the life use of storage batteries, such as those used in electric utility vehicles. Her 34-year career included developing and implementing computer code that analyzed alternative power technologies, supported the Centaur high-energy upper rocket stage, determined solar, wind and energy projects, identified energy conversion systems and alternative systems to solve energy problems. As part of a continuing education, Easley worked through specialization courses offered by NASA. She continued her education while working for the agency, and in 1977, obtained a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Cleveland State University. Glenn Research Center) in Cleveland, Ohio. She began her career as a mathematician and computer engineer at the NACA Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory (which became NASA Lewis Research Center, 1958–1999, and subsequently the John H. She applied for a job the next day, and was hired two weeks later - one of four African Americans of about 2500 employees. In 1955, she read a story in a local newspaper about twin sisters who worked for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) as "computers". Throughout the 1970s, Easley advocated for and encouraged female and minority students at college career days to work in STEM careers. Unfortunately, the local university had ended its pharmacy program a short time before and no nearby alternative existed. Shortly thereafter, she moved to Cleveland for personal reasons, with the intention of continuing her studies. It was not until 1965 that the Voting Rights Act eliminated the literacy test. In 1963, racial segregation of Birmingham's downtown merchants ended as a result of the Birmingham campaign, and in 1964, the Twenty-fourth Amendment outlawed the poll tax in Federal elections. Two dollars." Subsequently, she helped other African Americans prepare for the test. ![]() She remembers the test giver looking at her application and saying only, "You went to Xavier University. As part of the Jim Crow laws that established and maintained racial inequality, African Americans were required to pass an onerous literacy test and pay a poll tax in order to vote. From the fifth grade through high school, Annie attended Holy Family High School, and was valedictorian of her graduating class.Īfter high school she went to Xavier University in New Orleans, Louisiana, which was then an African-American Roman Catholic University, and majored in pharmacy for about two years. She encouraged Annie to get a good education. Annie was fortunate in that her mother told her that she could be anything she wanted but she would have to work at it. African American children were educated separately from white children, and their schools were most often inferior to white schools. Before the Civil Rights Movement, educational and career opportunities for African-American children were very limited. She was a leading member of the team which developed software for the Centaur rocket stage, and was one of the first African-Americans to work as a computer scientist at NASA.Īnnie Easley was born to Samuel Bird Easley and Mary Melvina Hoover in Birmingham, Alabama. She worked for the Lewis Research Center (now Glenn Research Center) of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). ![]() Easley was an African-American computer scientist, mathematician, and rocket scientist.
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