“I made airplanes and flew them to see if they could touch the clouds . . . There were no astronauts then. But I knew someday, people would fly in rockets and go to the stars.” – Jerry C. Elliott
Jerry C Elliott-High Eagle is an Osage-Cherokee physicist from Oklahoma. Despite facing discrimination during this undergraduate career, he became the first indigenous native to earn a physics degree from the University of Oklahoma. Soon after earning his bachelor’s degree, he became one of the first Native Americans to work at NASA. While at NASA, he worked to further telecommunications infrastructure between Native American reservations. Elliott served on the mission control team during Apollo 11’s moon landing. He played a key role in calculating the trajectory during the events of Apollo 13 to ensure successful recovery. For his efforts, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.