Jemison, who became the first Black woman to travel in space in 1992, had a medical degree and a background in chemical engineering.

Shirley Ann Jackson, the theoretical physicist who became the first Black woman to earn a doctorate from MIT and who later served as president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, was navigating the white and male-dominated world of physics in the 1960s and 1970s.

In each of these cases, and in many others like them, the pattern is similar to Kenner’s: extraordinary achievement in the face of specific barriers that race and gender erected against participation.

The specific barriers vary — exclusion from certain spaces, denial of promotion, assignment to less prestigious work, the requirement to perform at a higher level than white male colleagues to receive equal recognition — but the general pattern is consistent.