Macon County Students to Meet NASA Scientist

Macon County’s students have been invited to attend a Black History Program in Birmingham on Tuesday, February 19, 2013 and have the awesome opportunity to meet Rocket Scientist Angelia Walker. This year’s theme is “At the Crossroads of Freedom and Equality: The Emancipation Proclamation and The March on Washington”.

While there, students from Booker T. Washington High, Notasulga High and Tuskegee Institute Middle Schools will have the honor of participating in the program by leading the Pledge of Allegiance along with the Birmingham Federal Agencies Partners Veterans and two other local schools.

During the program, the students will have an opportunity to participate in a Question and Answer session with the Tuskegee University graduate.

Leader, Engineer, Mentor, Rocket Scientist and Safety Guru are some of the references used to describe Ms. Walker. She has worked more than 24 years with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Marshall Space Flight Center in numerous progressively responsible positions in the Safety and Mission Assurance (S&MA) and Engineering Directorates, such as: the Spacecraft and Vehicle Systems Chief of the Systems Engineering and Integration Division where she led 135 System Engineers in the development design integration, and system analysis of the United States’s next heavy lift capability launch vehicle that will carry humans and cargo into deep space and beyond. These missions are targeted for locations such as asteroids, the moon, Lagrange points and Mars.

Currently she is Deputy Director of Safety and Mission Assurance.

Before the retiring of the United States Space Shuttle, she supported the hardware propulsion elements readiness for flight for twenty years. She was NASA’s first African American female Quality Engineer for the Solid Rocket Booster and Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) Elements as well as its first African American Female to serve as the Space Shuttle Propulsion Elements Deputy Chief Engineer.

Ms. Walker earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Tuskegee University; is a graduate of the Federal Executive Institute; and a 2005 Fellows graduate of Harvard University School of Business Executive Managers Development Program. She also attended Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia.

Excerpt from http://alafricanamerican.com/aug.html

A special thanks to Mrs. Debra Pippen Johnson and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Birmingham Federal Agencies Partners for coordinating the event and extending the invitation to Macon County’s students.