Shirley A. Jackson ’68, PhD ’73

INTERVIEWER: So to begin with the future, knowing your background in particle physics and solid-state physics, how close do you think we are to the end of the silicon era in computing and in sort of the kinds of materials that we associate with solid-state devices today versus what's possible in the next generation?

JACKSON: Well I think one probably can't think of some discrete end but rather a transition as people look at new technologies. For instance, as you know, a lot of people have done work with carbon nanotubes. That's been a big focus of nanotechnology here. And so people are finding out they can do amazing things with nanotube-- carbon nanotube arrays. And in fact, some of those can be designed in ways that they have certain kinds of properties that are semiconducting. We actually have people looking at that kind of thing, looking at creating interconnects.

You see, when you want to use, build chips, and then you want to make them into devices and so on, there has-- the big issue these days which relates to the speed with which these things operate you have to be able to have the right kind of interconnects. Traditionally people have used copper interconnects. But now the question is can you find other substitutes that can dissipate energy, can give you the speed that you need and so on. So I think there's a movement in that direction.

People are also looking at so-called optical interconnects. They in fact require completely different kinds of materials in order to have the optical and optoelectronic properties that you need. And so that, by definition, begins to move you away from purely silicon. And then it also depends on the kind of computation. So if you're really looking at electronic-based computation-- movement of electrons-- that's one thing. If you look at optical, so-called optical computing or even molecular computing that begins to take you into new arenas. So it's hard to make an absolute projection, but one is already beginning to see a movement in certain directions. And ultimately I think all of this will come together.

INTERVIEWER: It sounds like what you're saying is that it is almost less of a physics material science question and more of a sense of moving away from traditional architecture in computing and really embracing a much more diverse set of materials and resources to create different kinds of machines.

JACKSON: Well I think in fact what you're really talking about is both. I think people are definitely looking at different architectures even within silicon-based kinds of devices and the like. People are looking at distributed intelligences, looking at intelligence networks and computation in networks. And then there's the question of how all of that then gets brought back together. And so that is kind of its own thing, this issue of are there different kinds of architectures. Can you get almost three dimensionality? But then there's a separate avenue that has to do with new materials, new kinds of structures based on new materials, and moving into different kinds of computational physics than just that it's purely electronically based. So it's both a physics, a materials, and an architecture kind of thing, but they all play off of each other.

INTERVIEWER: If you are a postdoc today with offers from Penn, and University of Chicago and MIT and some others, what field would you want to study in? What's the exciting sort of frontier that would expect you if you were a young student today?

JACKSON: Well I think there are a lot of them. I happen to particularly be interested in biotechnology and the life sciences, particularly as it brings engineering and the physical and computational sciences together with basic biology. I think that's where a lot of very interesting work is both from a fundamental perspective with understanding biological systems, how they evolve, intra- and inter-cellular signaling and then the degree to the which one can model things at the cellular level up to the organic level. And then bringing ideas from physics into that, as well as studying the actual physics and chemistry of living systems.

INTERVIEWER: Do you think your strong religious background gives you a sense of the unity of the sort of biological architecture of organisms and the sort of physics of how those systems work?

JACKSON: I don't know that I'd say that the one drives the other in a direct sense. I think there's a harmony in the sense of accepting human beings as they are and trying to understand both things from an organic point of view but understanding that there are spiritual and other aspects that then in a classic sense people can't connect. And as you know, religion and belief-- religion really is about belief. And science is about hypothesis, experimentation, and proof. And I remember a long time ago, I learned faith is the substance of things long for the evidence of things not seen. So I think there are going to be those things that fall outside of the realm of what people can see in the here and now. But I've never felt that there was any conflict between the two, at least for me.

INTERVIEWER: So how is your Latin these days?

JACKSON: Probably relatively non-existent.

INTERVIEWER: Relatively non-existent?

JACKSON: But in the sense that Latin is always there because it is at the root of a lot of things in English. English is an interesting language in the sense that it really has roots in both Romance languages and Germanic languages. And that drives a lot of the structure, a lot of the syntax and grammar. And I retain a lot of that. I probably with a little bit of work could translate a few things--

INTERVIEWER: You could polish it up.

JACKSON: --in Latin. I could polish it up because I've studied it for a long time.

INTERVIEWER: You know, I see two themes in your life. One is a quest for the deep structure of things, whatever we're talking about language in Latin or biology in some of the things you talk about in high school, or your work in particle physics. Why this is instinct to find out what's going inside things? Where does it come from?

JACKSON: Who knows. I think all of us are born with a natural curiosity, but I think it just takes a certain form. I do relate it to the fact that I've always been very interested in mathematics and being able to cast things into a mathematical format and use that as a tool to make predictions to probe things further to create some order. And so I've always been interested in the world around me.

| mean, there are things one can understand at the level of the organism. But then there things that one can only understand by going to the cellular or the genetic level. That's in living systems. Likewise, there are things one can understand at a big systems level. But to really understand them, one has to get down to an atomic and subatomic nuclear and even subnuclear level. And then I think there's a beauty in being able to go from that to understanding how things build up from there. Sometimes in predictable ways, sometimes in chaotic ways, sometimes they can't be understood but they're still interesting. But I've always liked to probe deep and then go from that back to a level of understanding things at a macro kind of dimension.

INTERVIEWER: Have you ever joined an organization that you didn't end up leading?

JACKSON: That's an interesting question.

INTERVIEWER: I can't find one, I mean with the exception of MIT, but almost everything else.

JACKSON: As opposed to join? Maybe not. But I didn't join them to lead them necessarily. Although in becoming president here or becoming chairman of the NRC, I certainly joined them to lead them. That was the way. That was the entry. But that's an interesting question that I'd never thought about before.

INTERVIEWER: What is this quality of leadership do you think that comes, I think, very early on?

JACKSON: I think that leadership actually derives from a desire to do something, but to make things happen, but to realize that one can't do it on one's own. That by definition, one is working through other people, working through structures that bring people together, or they provide platforms for them to do what they what to do. And so it begins with the desire to make a difference, to get something done. And then looking at the fact that that plays out through people inherently, through organizations, through structure. But then it also relates to wanting to inspire people, to show people that there is a different way or that there are multiple pathways to achieve what they want. And those are the only reasons that I've ever taken leadership positions. Whether they happened after I joined an organization or whether they were the way into the organization as it were. Really to make a difference.

INTERVIEWER: In mathematical terms, leadership is the ability to get people from point a to point b.

JACKSON: I think it's the ability to inspire people to go from point a to point b. And then to figure out how to get people organized in a way where they can in fact get to where they want to go.

INTERVIEWER: So if I was to begin at the beginning of your life, I see a lazy, hot summer afternoon in Washington, D.C., and a young girl dreaming about science and biology. Am I wrong? Is that how you?

JACKSON: Well, it's interesting. I did start out with an inherent interest in living systems. And that's why I collected live bumblebees and did various experiments with them.

INTERVIEWER: Collected live bumblebees?

JACKSON: I did.

INTERVIEWER: How did you get the idea? What kinds of things--

JACKSON: It just occurred to me one day. I was in the backyard and I was watching them buzz around. And as the seasons changed, ones saw different kinds of things we called bees, meaning going from the bumblebee to the wasp to the yellow jacket.

INTERVIEWER: They're all bees to little kids.

JACKSON: Right, they're all bees to little kids. And then I saw them, the bees, flying into flowers and sucking the nectar and I wanted to have a closer look. So I got the mason jars and mayonnaise jars and punched holes in the tops. And I also thought it was a challenge to capture the bees without being stung and without harming the bees. So I did that. Sometimes I would actually close the petal with my hand to pluck it off and then drop the whole thing into the jar and close it up.

INTERVIEWER: So you'd trap the bee in its own flower?

JACKSON: Correct. INTERVIEWER: That is smart.

JACKSON: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Clever.

JACKSON: But then sometimes that. But I thought that was a bit crude, so I liked to do it that way.

INTERVIEWER: And what did you learn about bees by collecting them?

JACKSON: Well, a couple of things. One, that all creatures respond to their environments. One thing I learned was almost a metaphor for what I think happens to people and I've actually used it in a commencement address. And that is I used to collect the bees and then I would see how they behave as a function of how much light they got, how much they were in darkness, according to what they-- how they behaved according to what they were fed. And then I would mixed them up. I'd put the bees with the yellow jackets with the wasps and see what their behaviors were like. I always wanted to let them go before they died. I was never interested in the classic insect collection where one had the dead bees or whatever they are--

INTERVIEWER: Butterflies.

JACKSON: --and the pin stuck in them. To me you learned about them by how they lived and then-- but I would find that after I had them for a bit, you know it could be as little as a couple of days, if I opened the jars they wouldn't fly away. And so it says they became habituated to being in this environment. And to me that's been a metaphor for how people can be habituated to being stuck where they are depending upon what they see or what they think the boundaries are.

INTERVIEWER: Interesting. What were the boundaries for you back then?

JACKSON: Well, that's an interesting question in the following sense: on the one hand, there were actual boundaries that related to school segregation, that related to opportunities for a young African American girl. But on the other hand, because of how I was raised and the circumstances in my family and immediate neighborhood, I didn't feel they were necessarily boundaries. And certainly not ones that were intellectual and so on. And my parents believed very strongly in education and the power of education.

But I was never motivated-- and this is a hard one to explain-- I was never especially motivated by what kind of job I thought I would get as a consequence of education. I was never especially motivated by how much money I thought I would make as a consequence of education. But more what education would allow me to do and how much it would allow me to pursue my interests. And then along the way, of course, to live and have a career and so forth. And to be honest, when I went to MIT, I just went to study. And I knew I wanted to be a scientist. But I didn't know what that really meant. And as I was there I learned that to really do physics at a high level one really needed to have a PhD. But I can't say that I went to get a PhD when I started. But maybe I'm jumping ahead.

INTERVIEWER: Well, no that's fine. It sounds like that focus on simply what the learning could give you was liberating in some sense.

JACKSON: It was. But it was liberating but it also helped me get through a lot of challenges as I went along. But my father had a big influence on me. My mother did as well. My mother's influence had to do with perseverance, and being able to deal with adversity, deal with it quietly, but to push through it. My father had a lot of homilies and things that have remained in my mind. So one of them was, aim for the stars so that you can reach the treetops. And at any rate, you'll get off the ground. And his basic message was, if you don't aim high you won't go far. So you have to set your trajectory almost beyond where you really expect to go. And you might even get there. But you'll certainly go a lot further than if you aim low. And that's had a very big effect on me.

My father also taught me that the way you get your next best job is to do as well as you can in the one you're in. So, you know, I'm looking at you. And we all tend to look around a little bit even we're talking with people. But there's some people who are always looking over your shoulder at who's next, who's behind them, and searching the horizon. And my father's message was you stay focused on what you're doing. And not that you can't have ambition, but that ambition should be linked to trying to do something meaningful where you are.

INTERVIEWER: So as an educator it sounds like you may believe that young people inadvertently limit themselves by focusing on job career, MBAs, the orientation towards deliverables and outcomes in education could unwittingly hamper individuals reaching their dreams.

JACKSON: Well what I'd say to our students is we educate them for life fundamentally, for leadership, and impact. That will translate in concrete ways to be getting jobs, going to grad school, building their careers. But in the end, education is about what kind of life you want to live. If we try to target the students or point them at a job and that's how they think about things, then that doesn't have them have a perspective to look around and see what may be changing, what new challenges there may be.

Because in some ways, the key to success is to-- if you're on a given lily pad, to actually have a sense of knowing if that's going away. Or being able to then know that you want to move on. And to me, the most fulfilling career is that you're always looking at what's new. And that's even the case if one stays in research. One is looking at and being aware of what the important questions are. So it's a funny trade off, because of course when parents send their children to college they're looking for them to have good job prospects. But what they really want is for them to have good life prospects. And so there's an interesting balance that one has. And so to try to instill that in the young people is, I think, an important part of my role and our roles collectively as educators here.

INTERVIEWER: How did science-- I mean, you sort of say that you've always been looking for deep structure and that you were interested in how things work and how life systems worked. By the time got to high schools, how did your interests in science begin to manifest themselves and what were the external circumstances that caused you think about science maybe more seriously? Things that were going on in the world?

JACKSON: Well you know I'm a product of really two key seminal things that occurred. One was the 1954 Brown versus the Board of Education decision that desegregated the public schools, or at least started the desegregation of the public schools. And that happened pretty quickly in Washington, D.C. In fact, the year after that decision the schools were desegregated. Now with that--

INTERVIEWER: What grade were you?

JACKSON: --that was 1954-- I have to do the calculation. I think I was going into the third grade. And what that actually did was it put me into a school situation where the school did really have more resources. I had more competition. And in a funny way had more diversity of thought. Because I was exposed to people I really wasn't interacting with that much before. And so it made me more broadly aware of a number of things. As well, interestingly enough, a couple of my schoolmates were the children of academics and scientists. In one case a scientist, in one case a mathematician.

So that's what I meant about being more broadly exposed. So it began to open an aperture to let me really see pathways to what one would translate one's interest in science to in terms of becoming a professional scientist or mathematician. The second big event it was the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite. And the effect that had was to change curriculum in the public schools. Particularly in Washington, but in the nation. And there was a lot more interest and focus on math and science and identifying people with those interests and abilities.

INTERVIEWER: In fact, after Sputnik, there was a remarkable consensus at every level of society that science was something you were supposed to do?

JACKSON: That's right.

INTERVIEWER: How did that-- how did you perceive that as a young person just sort of looking out at the world?

JACKSON: Well I perceived it as something that the society valued, something that their would be investment in. And the curriculum changed in the schools. And there was a-- now it was a bit controversial-- there was a tracking system put into the Washington, D.C. schools and we were tested in the sixth grade. And it was-- it's a funny thing. Let me see if I can explain it. There was a test. And the first time it was given it was actually an IQ test. And some people felt it was to separate the people following on the desegregation of the public schools.

INTERVIEWER: So some people thought that the test was a resegregation? JACKSON: Well that that was perhaps an intent. And so I took that and I did very well. And so according to that, one was placed into one track or another. And I ended up in the so-called honors track. There were four: basic track, business track, college prep, and honors. And the honors was one that began an acceleration in the seventh grade and had a big focus in a lot of things like the classics, like Latin, and so on. And so I studied Latin for six years, five in formal courses and the sixth year doing readings with my Latin teacher in Latin.

So I took what you might consider a combination of today things that didn't have names, like AP courses, some college level courses, some things that had a flavor of an IB kind of program. And we had pretty small classes, particularly in math and science and Latin. Meaning, I think in the math class we didn't have more than ten students. And the science was a little larger. Although in the science, science was not as strong actually. I ended up teaching a lot of my high school physics class when I took it. And then-- but the Latin was extreme.

INTERVIEWER: Wait a minute, you ended up teaching your high school physics class?

JACKSON: Yes, well I had a teacher who either didn't know that much or didn't wish to teach that much. And so he in many, many days would ask me to teach the class.

INTERVIEWER: What grade was this?

JACKSON: I think was eleventh grade.

INTERVIEWER: Eleventh grade. I see. But just minor detail, I was teaching the physics in eleventh grade.

JACKSON: But I actually liked it. And I was probably not thinking as much then as I think today that that's not right. And that reflects some of my perspective today about the need to have discipline based teachers and so on, at least for certain subjects.

INTERVIEWER: Did you feel at that time in the honors track that you were chosen in some sense? That the community was invested in your success? That you were carrying the flag for something or someone? Or was it something more personal and about you?

JACKSON: Well I think it was both. I mean it was certainly personal in the sense that I enjoyed, it gave me a great opportunity to pursue things I liked. Probably as I got closer to graduating from high school, I began to think of it more as carrying the aspirations of a community and so on, particularly as it related to my particular high school. And also my family, that I felt I couldn't let them down and they had a lot of expectation.

INTERVIEWER: Aside from the physics teacher that you mentioned a moment ago, I want you to talk a little bit about the people that mentored you in those early grades. And in general, how do you think the lack of opportunity for African Americans affected the talent pool of the people who ended up teaching you? Do you think you unwittingly benefited from the kind of individuals whose opportunity was teaching and you ended up having close relationships with?

JACKSON: I sure did. I mean, I've in fact said that my Latin teacher could have been a Latin or classics scholar in college. My math teacher certainly could have been a math professor. In fact, she did some fairly advanced work in statistics and the like. I had an economics teacher in high school who could have been an economics professor. And so forth. So particularly in math, Latin, economics, even my English teacher, I think that all of these-- and they were women by the way, by and large. The one who didn't want to teach so much was a male. But the women were first rate.

But then I later found out that some of this was also deliberate on the part of the school system. And let me explain. When the schools were desegregated and they were going to kind of begin to mix the teaching staff, and they were bringing both African American students and teachers into schools that before then had been all white, apparently there was a very deliberate picking and scouring around for teachers that had certain characteristics. And so they were looking for teachers that had a high degree of education, themselves had been talented students, and so on. So this confluence of factors kind of all came together. The Brown decision which desegregated the public schools, that de facto brought these teachers to the middle school, the junior high school we called it in Washington, and especially the high school I attended. And the fact of the nation's interest in science and math and strengthening of curriculum because of that.

There was a so-called SMSG math approach, the School Mathematics Study Group approach to math, that really had to do with with problem solving and looking at more advanced concepts. It actually came out of the University of Maryland and that was implemented in my high school math curriculum. Now there was kind of an irony to it because as I said this SMSG approach came out of the University of Maryland. But the University of Maryland at the time really was not admitting African American students. But I unwittingly benefited from all of that.

INTERVIEWER: That's extraordinary. What specific messages did you get from those important teachers about how you might end up and the kinds of choices you might make in college? Do you recall any particular?

JACKSON: Well I got the message that I-- they expected me to do great things. In fact, that's what one of my-- we used to have, I'm probably older than you are, we used to have what we called autograph books. And so one would go around when one was leaving first junior high school and then especially high school and have teachers and others sign. So one of my teachers wrote, you know to him or her, to whom much has been given, much is expected. We expect to hear many great things about you. So that was one. And the other was carpe diem. Pick the day. Seize the moment. And so I remember those. Still have those.

So all of that played into it. And in some ways when I think about it -- and you're causing me to think about it a lot more -- there were all of these vectors that all came. And when you did the vector sum, one could argue that it pushed me in a certain direction. My parents' outlook and their perspectives, what happened with the confluence of events, the messages from the teachers, plus my own interest and self-direction. But carpe diem and to her, to whom much has been given, much is expected. So one could say I kind of carried that with me as well. But that's different than having a kind of arrogance that I was better than anybody else. I've never felt that way. But more that I should take the talent I had and do the best I could with it.

INTERVIEWER: Do you remember a teacher at that stage saying to you that you were capable of reaching the edge of scientific inquiry, be it mathematics or physics or the biological sciences, that you could make a contribution? That it wasn't simply about learning but it was also about getting to the edge, the research edge?

JACKSON: All of my teachers told me that. In particular my teachers in math and science, but all of them told me that. That was a constant reinforcement that I got. Which I think-- and that's what I meant when in some ways there might have been a limit, but in many ways because of how I grew up they really wasn't. Because the message that I was getting from these teachers, from these women, who in fact had been limited themselves, even though they had great ability, really great education, and great motivation, was that the combination of the talent they felt I had and the period through which I was coming created a unique opportunity for me to work at that edge.

INTERVIEWER: So they saw the vectors, they saw the confluence.

JACKSON: Yes, yes. But they also felt they were vectors themselves.

INTERVIEWER: So who said MIT to you first?

JACKSON: You really want to know? We had in those days an assistant vice president for girls. I mean assistant principal. In in those days we had an assistant principal for girls and an assistant principal for boys. And I worked in the principal's office just doing things, helping out. Nothing for pay. It was just an honor to work in the principal's office. So the assistant principal for boys suggested I think about MIT.

INTERVIEWER: In what form? Do you remember?

JACKSON: When I was coming up I was coming into junior year, he said, well you know you should be thinking about where you want to go to college and I don't think you should just stay here in the Washington area. Have you ever heard of MIT? I think you should think about that. I said, what is MIT? He said, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I said, oh really. So I went home and I asked my father. I said, have you ever heard of MIT? Mr. Boyd, the assistant principal for boys, suggested I think about MIT. My father said, oh yeah, that's that school in Massachusetts where people go and they study a lot of things in math and science and engineering. My father did not graduate from high school. Very smart man.

INTERVIEWER: In addition to telling you about the reputation of MIT, you also got some warning that you'd be part of a bit of an experiment in psychology and sociology going to MIT in the years that you were going there. Right? What were you told about who would be joining you at MIT?

JACKSON: Well the person who had the greatest concern was my mother. And she didn't really want me to go. Because she felt that I would be alone, that I would be isolated, that there would likely not be very many other black students and that they would not be many women. And so she thought I would be by myself. And so she wanted me to think hard about whether I wanted to do that.

INTERVIEWER: Did you think hard about it?

JACKSON: I did. but then I told her it was my life and I wanted to pursue this and I felt that people in science would be different and that I wanted to study science. And of course my father wanted me to go all the time. And in the end my mother said, you're right. It is your life. And so they supported my decision.

INTERVIEWER: Was your mother wrong about the experience you had?

JACKSON: No, she was right. I wasn't the only one, but I was one of a very handful. And it was relatively hostile in the early days. And so in that sense she was totally right. On the other hand, my father was right as well, because it was a unique opportunity to study and learn and do science at a high level.

INTERVIEWER: I read a story that there were two women in the beginning of the undergraduate program, you and one other.

JACKSON: Right. And that people would confuse the two of you.

JACKSON: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: And there was a sense that you both looked alike because there wasn't a lot of interest in knowing you in any sort of detailed way. Can you recall?

JACKSON: Yeah, I mean the other woman in my class was Jenny Rudd. She graduated with me. And we were the first two women, we believe -- or we were told -- to actually get bachelor's degrees from MIT. People talk more about my being the first to get a PhD. But in fact Jenny and I were the first two to-- not necessarily the first two to enroll-- but certainly to end up with a degree.

INTERVIEWER: First two African American women.

JACKSON: African American. Now both of us are relatively short. And our complexions are somewhat similar. But we do look different. And yes, people would call me Jenny and call her Shirley. And so I think people thought they were being nice. They'd say, Hi Jenny. And I said, I'm not Jenny, I'm Shirley. They said, oh you're the other. I said, yes, I'm the other one.

INTERVIEWER: The other one.

JACKSON: Right, the other one.

INTERVIEWER: We have two. Wow.

JACKSON: And then we took a class together and the professor called us Tweedledee and Tweedledum. But it's okay. We persevered.

INTERVIEWER: Now I went to University of Chicago and took the honors physics at the University of Chicago which-- and I've forgotten more physics. I'm not good at physics. But what I will say, is the idea of you doing the physics problem sets by yourself at MIT gives me chills. I couldn't-- I mean, we worked in groups in physics. Because of the-- one consequence of the isolation was that you have to work on a lot of these problems by yourself.

JACKSON: That's right.

INTERVIEWER: How did that work? I mean, how did you discover that that was sort going to be your lot, at least in the early going?

JACKSON: Well, I've talked about it a little in other circumstances. But we-- I was-- we were working on the physics-- I was working on my physics problem set. And it was basically the first problem set. And I had worked my way through about half the problems. and then I had to get up to use the rest facilities. And when I left my room to go across the hall to the restroom, I saw essentially all the other freshman women on my floor, out there kind of spread out in the hall, working on the physics problems together.

And so I went and did what I had to do. And then when I went back to my room, I gathered up all of my papers and books. And I went out to say, may I join you? And one of the women looked up and said, go away. And I said, but I've worked half the problems and I think they're right and I think I know how to do the other half of the problems. And so another woman looked up and said, didn't you hear? She said go away. And so I went back into my room and I did cry for about half hour, 45 minutes. But in the end, I had my physics problems, I figured I had better finish them. So I kind of got myself together and finished the problem set. And then, when I would go to class, a lot of times people wouldn't sit next to me in class.

Now I had a method where if I got to class early enough, I would sit in the middle seat of the second row. It there was a reason for that. And that's because in the lectures, the professors would stand up on an elevated platform many times-- you've seen it I'm sure. And being in the second, sometimes the third row, in the middle, then one was more on an eye level with the professor. It's just easier. So I would come in and sit. And if I were there first, no one would sit in any of the seats around me.

And then similarly, even in the cafeteria, when we had dinner or any meal, if I sat at a table first, in general no one else would sit at the table. And then if I came and joined a table, then they would be done, even though they still have dessert or whatever. And some of them would say, where's Jenny? And I'd say, I don't know. And they were expecting me. This particularly happened my freshman year.

And then I gradually found out that others were working together, not just the women on my floor. And so then-- so I used to do the problems alone. Then I-- we would get the-- when we would do a test there would be a cover sheet. And then as well when one turned in homework problems, one would turn it in with a cover sheet: name, course number, section number, date, problem set number. Or the test would automatically have that kind of information. So when I turned it in and we would get it back, then the grade would be written on the front. So if one got 50 out of 50 or 49 out of 50-- and that's what I would be getting-- then people could see it. And they would be looking and so on. So then people would talk to me a little more. But it was very limited because they would want to ask me about a given problem, whether it was a problem in the problem set or on the exam, and that's what-- that's as far as they'd want it to go.

INTERVIEWER: They didn't want to collaborate.

JACKSON: Right. So they never really invited me to join the study groups. And so yes, I worked alone basically.

INTERVIEWER: I know enough about physics to know that you have to have a very clear mind to solve problems that require you to be very, very patient to see the problem through. I can't imagine it would be useful to be full of anger and resentment and a sense of--

JACKSON: Absolutely.

INTERVIEWER: --how did you clear your mind to do those problems?

JACKSON: Well in about three or four ways. One, I also learned-- and this was part of how I grew up-- that if I were healthy and I had ability and I had an opportunity, then it wasn't enough for me just to succeed for myself. That I needed to try to help somebody else. So I did volunteer work at Boston City Hospital-- what was then called Boston City Hospital. And so I worked on a pediatric ward. And so there were little kids from infant to about age two or so. And these kids were all races. And they had ailments from physical to very serious illnesses like leukemia or whatever.

And so there was one little boy who was a little white kid, blonde hair, beautiful body, except he had no eyes. And his nose was just kind of a hole. And his mouth was just kind of a hole. And he obviously was going to need plastic surgery down the line. But he was never going to see.

And as far as I could tell, no one ever came to see him. So I used to go and just hold him for awhile every day when I would go there before I started the work with the others. And what that taught me is that everybody has a burden. Everybody has something they're dealing with. And so when you see that and it's not specialized to one race, or you know whatever, then you kind of have a better understanding.

The second thing that helped me was that I joined a sorority and I became the president of the chapter.

INTERVIEWER: Of course.

JACKSON: And so we would do a lot of community service work. And then I personally used to tutor at the Y in Roxbury, tutor math and science. Primarily math. And so that was helpful. And then I joined a sorority, Delta Sigma Theta sorority. And I was shaping the chapter, as I said, as president kept me busy. And I would go-- to be honest with you, and they were-- well, let me explain.

There were some of the members of the sorority who lived in Boston, who grew up in Boston. And so their parents were there. And they would invite me over on the weekends. So I would go and spend the weekend. And sometimes I wouldn't come back on Monday because I just wasn't ready to kind of deal with all of what was going on. So instead of coming back to campus, I would just stay there. And I would do my work there. I had all my physics books and math and all of that. And I would just do that and read and because it was somehow more relaxing there. And so I would read and do my problem sets and so on. Sometimes it meant I would miss classes. Now I would structure it where I would never miss my math and science classes, particularly physics. But I would sacrifice some of my humanities classes. And so, but it helped me. And then so that's kind of-- and then finally, the physics itself. I would just get engaged and that put other things out of my mind.

INTERVIEWER: So you found ways to engage with other people in a variety of community settings and you allowed this sense of isolation to push you deeper into the material?

JACKSON: Into the material and in deeper into doing things for other people as well.

INTERVIEWER: But also deeper into the science.

JACKSON: That's correct.

INTERVIEWER: Shedding the whole extraneous stuff.

JACKSON: That's right.

INTERVIEWER: Which is kind of perfect for MIT.

JACKSON: Well it was. And in fact what happened was-- this was before the UROP program. You know, the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program. I actually started working in a lab in material science and engineering. And I just worked in the lab. In later years I got some academic credit when MIT started thinking about the fact that maybe it could do that. But every-- I worked there during the term. And then I would work in the summer and I then I would get paid a little bit in the summer.

But I used to just go to the lab. I used to like to do the experiments. It was actually more experimental. But I would also take my physics books and math and other things. And I would just work, do my homework in the lab, and so on. and then I got to know some of the scientists and the faculty. So in many ways, what's interesting about my MIT experience is that, if you ask me who my friends were at MIT, they by and large were not my classmates. They were some of the faculty I got to know, some of the younger faculty, couple of postdocs, and people interestingly enough who are younger than I, who came along in classes after mine. so I really--

INTERVIEWER: You were mentoring?

JACKSON: Some were mentoring and some we just were friendly. But that was what was interesting. So I'm about to go and participate in some part of my 40th reunion. And the truth of the matter is I wasn't that much friends with people in my class. But I'm going to go because it'll be an interesting sociological study. But it's a big reunion so I thought I would go.

INTERVIEWER: When did you figured that you could conceivably have a role in changing this kind of social construct at MIT that allowed for the sort of isolation and humiliation that you had to go through?

JACKSON: Well I think they were a couple of things. One, because in the sorority I had become the chapter president and had been able to really reorganize some things to help, in fact, the chapter survive. And let me explain to you about that. This was a New England regional chapter. So in those days, this was a historically African American woman sorority.

So in those days, there were no chapters of this group on campuses. And they weren't particularly welcomed. So instead of being a campus-based chapter, we were a New England regional chapter. So the members were drawn from Boston University, Boston College, Radcliffe, which then stood alone, Pembroke, which was part of Brown but stood alone, Yale, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Northeastern, as well as MIT.

So we actually pledged for six months. So it was very interesting. And we were very serious about community-based programs and social programs. So that made me think that maybe I could lead a little bit. And then the year I graduated, you know this from this being my 40th anniversary year, was the year that the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King was assassinated.

INTERVIEWER: It was 40 year ago this week, in fact. Last week.

JACKSON: That's correct-- last week. And I was a child of the King era. I'd already applied to grad school and I had been admitted to Harvard, to the University of Chicago, to Brown, to Penn, and to MIT in material science and in physics. My bachelor's degree was in physics but I did a joint thesis in material science and physics bachelor's thesis. So--

INTERVIEWER: And you had a preference for Penn at that point.

JACKSON: Well, no, I was visiting. I had been invited to come to these places to visit. So I had visited Brown and I was visiting Penn the day that Martin Luther King was assassinated. And so, thinking about all that I had been through, thinking about the movement that King and others led to open doors, thinking about what I had learned from all of my experiences, and being a pretty good student, I thought, well if I stay at MIT, one, I'll certainly get a good graduate education. But two, perhaps I, because I knew the place and had been there, that I could make a difference in having MIT be more open and hospitable to minority students. So that was a big reason why I stayed.

INTERVIEWER: So are you saying that King's assassination with a pivotal moment for you in terms of choosing a path that meant you would be at MIT much longer than simply your undergraduate years?

JACKSON: That's right. It wasn't the only thing. I was thinking about MIT. But I was not thinking about it necessarily more than I was thinking about some of these other places. Because I was pretty structured. See, I had my-- when doing the bachelor's thesis, I did superconductivity-- experiments related to superconductivity. What people refer to now as conventional superconductivity or the low temperature superconductivity. And in particular then, the problem I did on tunneling in superconducting niobium-titanium alloys had to be explained using what was then called the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory, BCS theory of superconductivity.

So Bob Schrieffer was at the University of Pennsylvania at the time. Leon Cooper was at Brown University at the time. Now John Bardeen was at the University of Illinois, but I had heard that Illinois was not particularly hospitable in Urbana Champaign to minority students, particularly African American. So with all I had already been through at MIT I kind of scratched that out. But a key person who actually made very seminal contributions in many-body theory that helped form the basis of the BCS theory was a gentleman named Leo Falicov and he happened to be at the University of Chicago. So that's why I applied to the University of Chicago. So I was very focused. So the real places that I was most interested in were Brown, Penn, and Chicago. And then I applied to Harvard because it was Harvard. And MIT. But yes, so when this occurred I made a decision that I would stay at MIT.