Shirley Ann Jackson's CV is mighty enough to merit its own paragraph. She was the first African American woman to earn an MIT doctorate (elementary particle physics), one of the first two African American women to earn a physics doctorate in the US, the first African American and the first woman to become commissioner of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the first African American woman to lead a national research university (she's president of Rensselaer Polytechnic), the first African American woman elected to the National Academy of Engineering, and the first to receive the Vannevar Bush award, given by the National Science Board for "a lifetime of achievements in scientific research, education, and senior statesman-like contributions to public policy."