Mae Jemison

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN
Honorary Conferring
Monday, 4 September 2023 at 11.30

TEXT OF THE INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS DELIVERED BY FULL PROFESSOR Lizbeth Goodman, Director of the UCD Inclusive Design Research Centre of Ireland, School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, on 4 September 2023, on the occasion of the conferring of the Degree of Doctor of Engineering, honoris causa on Dr Mae Jemison

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President, Graduates, Colleagues, Honoured Guests

Dr Mae Jemison epitomises what a global and inter-stellar explorer should be: she thinks, makes, and moves beyond boundaries of time and space, beyond silos of academic disciplines, beyond expectations and social or even scientific ‘norms’. She embodies a much-needed optimism and spirit of adventure, driving and informing her determination to succeed not only for her own sake but also for all of humanity and for the sake of the Earth itself. She was not born to carry this enormous burden but she overcame all manner of personal and social challenges to become the unstoppable force that she is today.

Here at UCD, our motto is Ad Astra: ‘to the stars’. Dr Mae Jemison may be the first Honorary Doctorate to be awarded the degree for her actual work in this regard: as an innovator and creative researcher who is a scientist motivated by social activism, and who has taken that interdisciplinary passion to its fullest conclusion: into space!

Dr Mae, as she is often known, is also known as Mae Jemison, M.D., as she holds a Medical Degree, along with her other impressive academic accomplishments and titles. Dr Jemison graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering and a Bachelor of Arts degree in African and Afro-American Studies. She received her medical degree from Cornell University Medical College. But she is much more than a graduate of all those fine institutions, a list of which will in future include our own esteemed UCD.

Dr Mae Jemison is known on the world stage as an astronaut, engineer, entrepreneur, physician and educator. She is indisputably at the forefront of integrating the physical and social sciences with art and culture to solve problems and foster innovation. Jemison leads the 100 Year Starship® (100YSS), a nonprofit global initiative the mission of which is to assure that capabilities for human travel beyond our solar system to another star will exist within the next 100 years, while also transforming our life on Earth. 100YSS started through a competitive seed-funding grant, pushes for radical leaps in knowledge, technology and human systems. It does not accept excuses for lack of progress and does not recognise any justification for accepting silos of knowledge, hierarchies of power, limitations to knowledge sharing, or any statement that might begin with: ‘there is only way to do this’. . . There is always another way: not just a creative ‘workaround’ but a fundamental path to rethink the potential of our human futures.

Dr Jemison served six years as a NASA astronaut and was the first woman of colour to go into space aboard Endeavour on a joint space shuttle mission with the Japanese space agency. Trained as anengineer, social scientist and dancer, Jemison, also and perhaps mainly a practicing medical doctor, served as the Area Peace Corps Medical Officer for Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Dr Jemison started The Jemison Group, Inc. a technology consulting firm integrating critical socio-cultural issues into the design of engineering and science projects. An environmental studies professor at Dartmouth College, she focused on designing sustainability into technologies for both the industrialised and developing worlds.

In 1994, Dr Jemison founded the international science camp The Earth We Share™ (TEWS), a program of the non-profit Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence (DJF) which designs and implements STEM education experiences impacting thousands of students and hundreds of teachers worldwide.

LOOK UP, also led by Jemison, focuses the attention of people all around the world, on a single day, to weave a global tapestry of what we individually and collectively see, feel, think, love, fear, offer, need and hope, as we look up at the sky.

Dr Jemison has received significant recognition, numerous awards and honorary degrees including many in her native USA where she is an inductee of the National Women’s Hall of Fame, the National Medical Association Hall of Fame, the Texas Science Hall of Fame, and the International Space Hall of Fame as well as a recipient of the CommonWealth Award of Distinguished Service, the National Organisation for Women’s Intrepid Award, and the Kilby Science Award. Dr Jemison is Bayer Corporation USA’s Making Science Make Sense® chief ambassador. She authored ‘Find Where the Wind Goes: Moments from My Life and the ‘True Books’ series on space exploration. She is a series host of National Geographic’s ‘One Strange Rock’ and space operations advisor for its global miniseries, ‘Mars’.

In addition to all of this, there is much more! Those of a previous generation to most of our graduates here today may be most impressed to know that Dr Mae was the first actual astronaut to appear on the Star Trek TV series! And kids of all ages may know that she is also the inspiration for a LEGO figurine in the LEGO Women of NASA kit: who else are we mere mortals ever likely to meet in person who is also a Lego Figure!!!

So how did we get so fortunate to have Dr Mae here with us today, joining your celebrations as you embark on the next phase of your own remarkable journeys? Well, I first met Dr Mae a decade ago in Brussels when we were both invited to represent ‘Women Leaders’ (in STEAM: Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) in conversations with high level EU colleagues in the planning phases of the previous and current EU Horizon Programmes, and then again at a major UCD symposium in Brussels that followed. I recall being so mightily impressed by Dr Mae at our first meeting that I predicted that we would all follow her lead beyond any definitions of ‘women’s leadership in research’ that currently existed. We were both interviewed by EU TV on topics including the always controversial subject of potential gender quotas, diversity and inclusion mandates, and also about our BIG IDEAS to incorporate into the frameworks of future research funding calls. I spoke of the need for Interdisciplinary Inclusive Hippocratic Innovation (following a first principle of First Do No Harm), and about the understanding that we would need to inject Creativity further into the EU and global research work programmes, on the basis that no developments in AI would ever fully replace human creativity, empathy, or intuition in the future of education, the future of work, the future of our efforts to sustain our Earth and its ecosystem, both here and potentially beyond this planet.Dr Mae spoke of her work with the 100 Year Starship Project: a plan to bring the most diverse people and expertise together to garner collective wisdom just in case humans had to leave this Earth. What a talk! And what a team she brought with her! Dr Mae was clearly the leader of leaders, and she, along with the legendary Buzz Aldrin, spoke of the need to look carefully at what we understand to be our collective ‘history’ in order to look to the future. Dr Mae, to me, then as now, stood out in her solidity of presence in this debate: the leader whose ‘herstory’ would help to shape a more sustainable future for us all.

Just before COVID closed down the world for a time, I had the great honour of announcing the Legendary Women of Change Award for Dr Mae Jemison at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on behalf of the WEF Women. I then nominated her for this award, which took years to announce due to COVID delays, until today, when it is my even greater honour to deliver this citation in her honour.

So, as you can see, Dr Mae is known for many things, each one of which far exceed most people’s expectations or abilities, and yet in each area of her great success, she has focussed not on hierarchies, not on exclusionary or competitive tactics for personal gain and fame or self-promotion, but rather on an inclusive mission with the aim of involving and including Everyone in the achievements that are possible when one very smart and very strong woman decides, quite literally, to reach for the stars.

As Principal of the 100 Year Starship, Dr Mae Jemison’s leadership and vision provide guidance and direction towards fulfilment of the goal of ensuring all the capabilities for a successful human journey to another star will exist by the year 2112. In this regard, Dr Mae has held one of the most influential and impactful research leadership roles in the known world. It is remarkable that we can now embrace Dr Mae as ‘one of UCD’s own’, and as the newest member of our Inclusive Design Research Centre, and as a co-Principal Investigator of our newest ambitious project: IMAGINALS, which takes its title from the scientific phenomenon of the metamorphosis of the caterpillar to butterfly. To oversimplify, when the cells of the cocoon ‘melt’ in the process of the caterpillar transforming to the butterfly, the cells [in their in-between state] are known as Imaginal Cells: they hold both the embodied cellular memory of the caterpillar and the potential of the butterfly to come. The imaginal cells, much like many ‘outliers’ in scientific and philosophical enquiry through the ages, are successful in part because they are rejected in their own contexts and own time. The do not conform to any ‘norm’ or ‘centre’ or ‘universal’ assumptions. Rather, they are regarded as threats and are attacked by the caterpillar's immune system. But these remarkable people, like Imaginal Cells, persist, multiply, and connect with each other. The imaginal cells are attracted to each other, connect and cluster, and increasingly resonate at the same frequency, sharing information back and forth until a tipping point is reached. That tipping point leads to change, and then to transformation. This is the ‘imaginal’ state required by our world today, and we need leaders such as Dr Mae to help us hold steady as we transform our academic and educational systems, our global climate, our human policies and actions in our efforts to avoid extinction, through creative adaptation.

And here she stands before us, a leader amongst leaders, with a truly unique perspective on the potential of humankind to continue to exist, in the context of global change, climate urgencies, space challenges, and the next frontiers of all possible human endeavour. . . To have Dr Mae Jemison working alongside us, leading and guiding our new major strategic partnerships across sectors, across borders, across time zones and languages and assumptions from the past, to find a more sustainable future, is an enormous honour for us all. To know that she recognises the intellect, the determination, and the unlimited potential of every graduate who shares this stage today (andof all their families whose values and hard work brought them this far in their own journeys), is both a mark of recognition for UCD, and also of each of YOU, as the explorers who will carry our shared values forward to your next frontiers.

With the humility of the caterpillar who is not yet reduced to the Imaginal Cells, but who yet imagines that she may one day become a butterfly, I bring you the real deal: the transformative, the extraordinary, the trailblazing leader who will fly with you all Ad Astra, to the Stars: Dr Mae Jemison!

Praehonorabilis Praeses, totaque Universitas

Praesento vobis hanc meam filiam,quam scio tam moribus quam doctrina habilem et idoneam esse quae admittatur, honoris causa ad Gradum Doctoratus ENGINEERING; idque tibi fide mea testor ac spondeo, totique Academiae.