Mary Winston Jackson was an American mathematician and aerospace engineer at NACA, which would later become NASA. Jackson was born on April 9, 1921, in Virginia, to Ella and Frank Winston. She grew up in Hampton and attended George P. Phenix High School. After graduating from high school, Jackson attended Hampton University, located in Hampton, Virginia, where she earned her bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and political science in 1942. After graduating from the Hampton Institute, Jackson taught briefly in public schools in Maryland. In 1943 she became a secretary and bookkeeper for USO. She joined the NACA, which became NASA in 1951. Jackson began her career at NACA as a computer at the Langley Research Center located in her hometown of