Jerry Chris Elliott High Eagle (born 1943) is a physicist and was one of the first American Indians to work at NASA.
[5] He faced racial discrimination from his professors, and was unable to pursue graduate studies due to the death of his stepfather and an overall lack of funding.
Elliott played an instrumental role in computing the trajectory and successful recovery back to Earth during the events of Apollo 13.
His efforts during the events of the disaster awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Richard Nixon[7] for his role in saving the lives of the three endangered astronauts.
[4][13][14][15][16] Accomplishing his boyhood vision of landing men on the Moon, Elliott continued work at NASA for a total of four decades.
[7][17] In 1977, he was a founder/incorporator of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, Inc., along with two other founders, George Thomas (Cherokee), and Alex Labadie (Osage).