Annie Easley

Annie C. Easley was born on April 23, 1933 in Birmingham, Alabama. She is an African American Computer Scientist who worked for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Lewis Research Center and its predecessor agency (NACA).

Annie Easley was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, where she went to grade school and high school. After high school she went to New Orleans, Louisiana, to Xavier University, which is a co-ed school. There, she majored in pharmacy. After a couple of years she got married and moved to Cleveland with the intention of going into the School of Pharmacy there, but the local university there had just shut down their School of Pharmacy. The nearest School of Pharmacy was in Columbus, but as a young married woman she could not go away and leave her husband alone.

One day, in 1955, she read a local newspaper article about a story on twin sisters who worked at NACA as "computers" and the next day she applied for a job, and within two weeks she was working there. She began her career in as a Mathematician and Computer Engineer at the NACA Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in Cleveland, Ohio. She continued her education while working for the agency and in 1977, she obtained a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Cleveland State University. As part of a continuing education, Easley worked through specialization courses offered by NASA.

Her career that spanned 34 years continued to evolve and included computer developing and implementing computer code that analyzed alternative power technologies, supported Centaur, determined solar, wind and energy projects for NASA; identified energy conversion systems and alternative systems to solve energy problems. Her energy assignments have included studies to determine the life use of storage batteries, such as those used in electric utility vehicles. Her computer applications are used to identify energy conversion systems that offer the improvement over commercially available technologies.

She made contributions to several NASA Papers such as:

• Performance and Operational Economics Estimates for a Coal Gasification Combined-Cycle Cogeneration Powerplant.
• Bleed Cycle; Propellant Pumping in a Gas-Core Nuclear Rocket Engine System.
• Effect of Turbulent Mixing on Average Fuel Temperatures in a Gas-Core Nuclear Rocket Engine.

She retired in 1989.

Annie Easley was interviewed in Cleveland, on August 21, 2001 by Sandra Johnson[1](interview code OHI0026830). The interview is stored in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Johnson Space Center Oral History Program. The interview document has 55 pages and has discussions about:

• Organizations discussed: Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX; National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington, DC
• Locations discussed: Houston, TX; North America; Texas; United States
• Topics discussed - ASP terms: Astronauts; Houston, TX; Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX; National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington, DC; North America; Oral history; Space flight; Texas; United States; Women; Women astronauts--United States
• Topics discussed - Other terms: Space; Womens' contributions

References

• Black Contributors to Science and Energy Technology. U.S. Department of Energy (Washington, D.C.: Office of Public Affairs), 1979, p. 19. DOE/OPA-0035(79)

• "Performance and Operational Economics Estimates for a Coal Gasification Combined-Cycle Cogeneration Powerplant." Nainiger, Joseph J.; Burns, Raymond K.; Easley, Annie J. NASA, Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio, USA NASA Tech Memo 82729 Mar 1982 31p

• "Bleed Cycle Propellant Pumping in a Gas-Core Nuclear Rocket Engine System." Kascak, A. F. ; Easley, A. J. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio. Report No.: NASA-TM-X-2517; E-6639 March 1972

• In Black and White: A Guide to Magazine Articles, Newspaper Articles and Books Concerning More than 15,000 Black Individuals and Groups. 3rd edition Mary Mace Spradling, ed. (Detroit, MI: Gale Research Co.), 1980. p. 289.

• The ACM-Mills Conference on Pioneering Women in Computing Mills College, Oakland, California. May 7, 2000