Mae Jemison

We have to change the way people look at scientists. Today, they are the nerds, the geeks. Instead, we want some of the cool kids to say, 'Hey, this is all right.'

What I'm very concerned about is how do we bolster our self-awareness as humans, as biological organisms?

We are all tasked to balance and optimize ourselves.

I wanted to be a professional dancer for a period of time, and I did a lot of dancing and choreography and got paid for it.

The fact we don't have a lunar base has nothing to do with the technology. It has to do with public commitment and societal support.

When you have teachers saying, 'I don't have enough time for hands-on activities,' we need to rethink the way we do education.

The difference between science and the arts is not that they are different sides of the same coin even, or even different parts of the same continuum, but rather, they are manifestations of the same thing. The arts and sciences are avatars of human creativity.

I think that people need an adrenalin rush. Folks need something aspirational; they need to do something that is hard. That's what ignites the imagination.

The biggest challenge we all face is to learn about ourselves and to understand our strengths and weaknesses. We need to utilize our strengths, but not so much that we don't work on our weaknesses.

A big part of engaging kids in science is not getting the single, correct answer; it's being willing to work with students to discover the correct answer.

When I left NASA, I was looking at how you could use space technologies for developing countries' work.

The drills we do, where you're telling kids to memorize things, don't actually work. What works is engaging them and letting them do things and discover things.