Gail Holmes Maury

Born Abigail Holmes Collett on March 1, 1941, in Rome, Georgia to a farmer-turned-schoolteacher Samuel Taft and Carolyn Holmes Collett, who taught third grade. She was always known as Gail. Her father was the only one of ten children to go to college. Her parents encouraged education as a tool for self-improvement, even though she was a girl. Gail attended Emory on partial scholarship and graduated with a degree in chemistry in 1963, then completed a master’s in microbiology at the University of Georgia. She moved to Maryland and worked for the FDA on food safety and food-borne illnesses.

A mutual friend introduced her to Jesse Lewis Maury, a NASA mathematician. Gail and Lewis married in 1967 and had two daughters. In 1976 she became a NASA contractor, teaching herself computer programming on the job. In the early 1980s she completed two master’s degree (computer science and technical management) at Hopkins while working full-time and raising two children. As a NASA contractor, she was one of the few women to manage the development of space ground support systems. She worked on UARS, the satellite that discovered the ozone hole, led a project with the European Space Agency for an experiment that flew on the Shuttle, wrote test software for the Hubble Space Telescope, and was part of a project pioneering the use of Java for spacecraft systems. She was also a beloved mentor to other computer programmers.

Gail volunteered with The Caritas Society, an organization that supported St. John's students, and enjoyed adult study groups at St. Johns, and started to learn Russian. She enjoyed travel, museums, literature—she read 2-4 books a week—and spending time with her animals.

Her husband of 49 years, Jesse Lewis Maury, predeceased her in 2016. She is survived by her daughters, Laurel Maury and Dr. Erinn Maury, her son-in-law David Stewart, her best friend, Diane McMains, her beloved dog Eliza, and her rescue cat Katy.

A memorial service will be held on September 26th at 11 a.m. at St. Margaret's Church, 1601 Pleasant Plains Rd in Annapolis. A reception will follow.

In lieu of flowers, please donate to the Society of Women Engineers which supports the education and advancement of women in STEM careers: https://swe.donorsupport.co/page/DonateEndowed