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Duchess Harris shares story of human computers with La Crosse
- harris59
- Jan 17, 2018
- 1 min read

For the first 10 years Miriam D. Mann worked at NASA’s predecessor, she was legally prohibited from working alongside her white co-workers, according to her granddaughter, Duchess Harris.
A Twin Cities-based author and professor, Harris shared the story Tuesday of her grandmother, who was one of the first African-American women to work at NASA. She was joined at the Martin Luther King Day event for about 800 La Crosse area middle-schoolers by University of Wisconsin-La Crosse associate professor of physics Taviare Hawkins, the 50th African-American woman to ever receive a doctorate in physics, and senior Adrienne Hester, who will be the first black woman to receive a degree in physics from UW-L when she graduates next year.