Donna Shirley grew up in Wynnewood, Oklahoma. Her interest in Mars and space exploration began when she read The Sands of Mars by Arthur C. Clarke.  She took flying lessons at age 15 and soloed at the Pauls Valley Airport the next year, earning a pilot’s license at 16.
She enrolled in the University of Oklahoma as an engineering student, even though her advisor told her that “Girls can’t be engineers.”

Donna worked at the Jet Propulsion Lab from 1966 to 1998 and was the only woman among the 2,000 engineers who had an engineering degree. 

Her 35-year career as an aerospace engineer reached a pinnacle in July 1997 when Sojourner–the solar-powered, self-guided, microwave-oven-sized rover–was seen exploring the Martian landscape in Pathfinder’s spectacular images from the surface of the red planet.  She was the leader of the mostly male team that designed and built Sojourner–the first woman ever to manage a NASA program.  

Listen to Donna’s oral history interview, as she talks about the thrill of seeing the first Mars images, how she became a trailblazer, and whether there is life on Mars on the podcast and oral history website, VoicesOfOklahoma.com.