Early Life, Education and Family
Lisa Jackson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was adopted weeks after her birth. She grew up in Pontchartrain Park, a predominantly African-American middle-class neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1979, Jackson graduated as valedictorian from Saint Mary's Dominican High School in New Orleans. She received a scholarship from the National Consortium for Graduate Degrees for Minorities in Engineering & Science due to her strong performance in mathematics. This allowed her to gain early exposure to a college environment.
She attended Tulane University with a scholarship from Shell Oil Company. A dean at the Tulane School of Engineering got her interested in that discipline as an academic path, and she graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering in 1983. Jackson then earned her Master of Science degree, also in chemical engineering, from Princeton University in 1986.
Jackson's mother was living in New Orleans at the time Hurricane Katrina flooded the city in 2005, and Jackson drove her out of the city. Jackson is married to Kenneth Jackson and is the mother of two children.
Jackson has been a resident of East Windsor Township, New Jersey, along with her husband and two sons.
Read more about this topic: Lisa P. Jackson
Famous quotes containing the words early, education and/or family:
“The secret of heaven is kept from age to age. No imprudent, no sociable angel ever dropt an early syllable to answer the longings of saints, the fears of mortals. We should have listened on our knees to any favorite, who, by stricter obedience, had brought his thoughts into parallelism with the celestial currents, and could hint to human ears the scenery and circumstance of the newly parted soul.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A President must call on many persons—some to man the ramparts and to watch the far away, distant posts; others to lead us in science, medicine, education and social progress here at home.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“The family is on its way out; couples go next; then no more keeping cats or parrots.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)