The Woman Who Helped Us Hear Juno

The Woman Who Helped Us Hear Juno
She's done the work for longer than many have been alive, let her keep the title. "Pivotal in determining Juno’s success is Finley, NASA’s longest serving female employee. However, in 2004 the space agency degraded her employment, taking away her title of engineer and switching her salary to an hourly rate simply because she doesn’t hold a college degree. When Finley was hired in 1958, bachelor degrees were not seen as a prerequisite as they are today. Finley was highly gifted in mathematics but never finished college--instead she got a job as a "computer" at JPL. Before digital devices, human “computers” were responsible for performing all the calculations for laboratories, often by hand. In 1969, Sue and the other female "computers" were officially made engineers. It was an incredible achievement for them, symbolizing their hard work and dedication. However, when NASA changed its policy in 2004, requiring bachelor degrees for all its engineers, that title was taken away. Finley was the only one of the history-making group affected, the other women having retired after working in the lab for decades. No one at NASA has been able to satisfactorily explain why one of the pioneers of our space agency now fills out timecards, her worth measured in hours instead of decades."