GRA/Ph.D. Candidate, Georgia State University
An astrophysicist with Atlanta roots dating back to the 1865 emancipation of enslaved persons, India Jackson (B.S. ’10, M.S. ’13, M.S. ’23, M.S. ’24, Ph.D. ’24) is a scientist, scholar, teacher and trailblazer. Jackson, the first Black woman to earn a Ph.D. in physics at Georgia State, completed her second NASA internship in 2023 and is in the process of seeking postdoctorate positions at several prestigious institutions. By invitation, she has given two talks at Harvard University about her research in computer vision, machine learning and statistics for space weather prediction.
As a second-year student at Georgia State, Jackson became pregnant with her daughter Jewel and experienced a high-risk pregnancy with health complications. She credits the university’s empathy in working with her on a hardship withdrawal, its commitment to nurturing nontraditional students and the support of faculty, staff and students for helping shape her academic and professional journey. Jackson’s understanding of the barriers that exist in STEM fields led her to teaching mathematics part time at Atlanta Technical College, Georgia Piedmont Technical College, Atlanta Metropolitan State College, Clark Atlanta University and Morris Brown College.