Shirley Jackson gets shout out on SNL
You might have seen that RPI president Shirley Jackson was namechecked on Saturday Night Live this past weekend. The clip is above -- the part referencing Jackson starts at the 2:45 mark.
It's a Weekend Update segment in which Leslie Jones uses Hidden Figures as a prompt to talk about the way the contributions of African Americans often don't get taught in schools, and when that history is taught it's squished into a designated history month. It's an important point. And Jones is funny, as usual.
The segment portrays Jackson as the inventor of caller ID, which misrepresents her work at Bell Labs. Jackson, a physicist, did fundamental research on materials used for semiconductors -- work that helped clear the path for all sorts of telecommunications applications.
And, sure, it's a comedy segment, but to say "she wasn't even in tech"... Shirley Jackson is tech. The first African American woman to earn a doctorate from MIT. An accomplished research scientist. A chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the country's foremost org for promoting science. President of RPI. And last year the recipient of the National Medal of Science.
... said KGB about Drawing: What's something that brought you joy this year?