“My mother usually considered her work on the Apollo program to be the highlight of her career,” said Neil Siegel, an IBM Professor of Engineering Management at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. “When disaster struck the Apollo 13 mission, it was the Abort-Guidance System that brought the astronauts home safely.”

The woman he was speaking of was Judith Love Cohen, creator of the Abort-Guidance System at NASA. Not only that, but one of her children, Jack Black, would go on to become a quite famous actor.

From a young age, Judith Love Cohen harbored a fascination for space. Born in Brooklyn, New York, on August 16, 1933, Cohen initially aspired to pursue a career in astronomy. However, the concept of a female astronomer had never crossed her path.

Cohen later said, “Girls weren’t encouraged to venture into such domains.” The only instance she witnessed a woman engaged in something captivating was through her math teacher. So, Cohen opted to become a math teacher herself.

Within the confines of her home, Cohen avidly absorbed her father’s teachings, particularly when he employed ashtrays to explain geometry. By the time she reached fifth grade, her peers paid her to solve their mathematical assignments. Undeterred by her counselor’s guidance, Cohen enrolled in Brooklyn College to study mathematics.

While there, Cohen discovered a passion for engineering, in addition to her existing ardor for math. Dancing and engineering became her initial passions. By the age of 19, she became a dancer in the Corps de Ballet of the New York Metropolitan Opera Ballet Company while studying engineering at Brooklyn’s engineering school. Towards the end of her first year, she crossed paths with Bernard Siegel, whom she subsequently married a few months later.

The newlyweds relocated to southern California, where they embarked on building their family. Despite giving birth to three children—Neil, Howard, and Rachel—Cohen persisted in her pursuit of knowledge. Neil Siegel later recollected, “She thrived on being occupied.”

By 1957, Cohen completed her undergraduate and graduate degrees in electrical engineering from USC. She then secured a position at Space Technology Laboratories, a NASA contractor later known as TRW, thus fulfilling her childhood aspiration.