BIOGRAPHY

I was born on September 5, 1981 in Columbia, South Carolina to the parents of Phillip and Pearl Jackson.  I was the FINAL child of eight--three boys and five girls!  I have had a rather different childhood experience than most others my age.  All of my siblings are at least eight years older.  More can be found about my family on the page I have dedicated to them (see Family).  I have lived in South Carolina all of my life, but I have had the opportunity to venture off later on through my educational career.  I attended John P. Thomas Elementary School, Alcorn Middle School, Eau Claire High School, and then Columbia High School, once moving to a different part of town.  I graduated number six in my class and moved on to pursue my college career at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina.  More can be found about this institution on its page (see Wofford College).  Next semester will be my final year.  I have had great opportunities while I have been at this institution and although I have felt somewhat limited due to location and size at times, I feel that this is the place where I was meant to be.  I was a triple major in Computer Science, Math, and Spanish, but had to drop down to two in order to pursue more traveling opportunities.  I sacrificed a degree in Math to spend a month in the Dominican Republic in 2001 and an entire semester in Salamanca, Spain this year.  My summers have been quite occupied as well.  I have great guidance at Wofford and have always been blessed with various opportunities.  The summer of my freshman year, I interned at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma under NSF's Research Experience for Undergraduates Program.  The summer of my sophomore year, I interned at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California.  This summer, I am interning at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, under the Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research's sub-program, the Distributed Mentor Project.  More can be found about Duke University on its page (see Duke University).  When I return to Wofford for the upcoming school year, I will continue being a member and/or officer of various organizations such as the Association for Computing Machinery, the Association of African-American Students, and the gospel choir.  Outside of school and summer internships, I have very little time for fun.  I hold several other "side" jobs.  I do a lot of web development for Wofford, and I am currently working as a part-time sales associate at Ann Taylor.  In my spare time, which is very scarce, I enjoy travelling with/to see my boyfriend, Talvar Gholar, who is just as busy as I am.  He is currently working at Lockheed Martin in Manassas, Virginia in anticipation of starting his Ph.D program this upcoming semester.  By now, I'm sure this is far more information that anyone has ever needed to know about me, so for that reason, I'll end.  However, if there are any questions/comments/etc., feel free to contact me by email.