Just a Girl: Growing Up Female and Ambitious

Published in 2019
280 pages

epub


Lucinda Jackson, scientist and corporate executive, spent eight years in academia and more than forty years with Fortune 500 Companies. After growing up on the West Coast, she received her PhD at Southern Illinois University and continued in science throughout her career, speaking worldwide on environmental topics, and serving on boards of academic, non-profit, and industry organizations. Dr. Jackson has published peer-reviewed articles, patents, and book chapters and is working on a book series about freedom after a career-dominated life. After Peace Corps volunteerism in Palau and teaching science in Mexico, Dr. Jackson and her husband returned recently to their home near San Francisco. They have three male-liberated sons who are scattered around the globe.

What is this book about?
Just A Girl is the sensitive, personal story of the author’s ambition to become and succeed as a scientist during the “white man in power” era of the 1950s to 2010s. In the male-dominated science world, she struggles from girlhood unworthiness to sexist battles in jobs on the farms and in the restaurants of America, in academia’s laboratories and field research communities, and in the executive corner office. Jackson overcomes pain, shame, and self-blame, learns to believe in herself when others don’t, and becomes a champion for others.