**Shirley Ann Jackson** is a trailblazing American physicist and educator who became the first Black woman to earn a Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her theoretical physics research at Bell Laboratories helped lay the foundation for major telecommunications innovations, including developments that contributed to the touch-tone telephone, portable fax machines, fiber-optic cables, caller ID, and call waiting. She later served as president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, bec