2021 President's Lecture: Experimenting in microgravity

This year our President's Lecture was given by NASA astronaut and physiologist, Jessica U. Meir on 'Experimenting in microgravity: Full circle for a scientist turned astronaut'. In this lecture she talked about her career from physiologist to astronaut.
Speaker bio:
Dr Jessica U. Meir was born on July 1, 1977 and raised in Caribou, Maine. She is a private pilot and speaks conversational Swedish and Russian.
Dr Meir earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology from Brown University in 1999 and a Master of Science degree in Space Studies from International Space University in 2000. From 2000 to 2003, Dr Meir worked for Lockheed Martin’s Human Research Facility at the NASA Johnson Space Center, supporting human physiology research on the space shuttle and International Space Station. During this time, she also participated in research flights on NASA’s reduced gravity aircraft and served as an aquanaut crew member in the Aquarius underwater habitat for the 4th NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) mission.
Prior to becoming an astronaut, her career as a scientist focused on the physiology of animals in extreme environments. In 2009, Dr Meir earned a Doctorate in Marine Biology (diving physiology) from Scripps Institution of Oceanography (UCSD). For her PhD research, she studied the diving physiology of marine mammals and birds, focusing on oxygen depletion in diving emperor penguins (Antarctic field research) and elephant seals (northern California). She investigated the high-flying bar-headed goose during her postdoctoral research at the University of British Columbia, training geese to fly in a wind tunnel while obtaining various physiological measurements in reduced oxygen conditions. In 2012, Dr Meir accepted a position as Assistant Professor at the Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital, where she continued her physiology research.
Dr Meir was selected in June 2013 as one of eight members of the 21st NASA astronaut class. She went onto gain extensive Mission Control Capsule Communicator (CapCom) experience, including serving as Lead CapCom for Expedition 47, the BEAM (Bigelow expandable module on the International Space Station) mission, and an HTV (Japanese Space Agency cargo vehicle) mission. She was also the ground IV (mission control communicator to spacewalking astronauts) for two space station spacewalks. In 2016, Meir served as a crew member on the European Space Agency (ESA) CAVES space analog caving mission in Sardinia, Italy. She currently serves as the Assistant to the Chief Astronaut for Commercial Crew (SpaceX).
Expedition 61 and 62 (September 25, 2019, through April 17, 2020).
The crew launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard the Soyuz spacecraft. Meir, who served as Flight Engineer, was also joined by Soyuz Commander Oleg Skripochka of the Russian space agency Roscosmos. During her first spaceflight, Dr Meir conducted the first all-woman spacewalks with crewmate Christina Koch of NASA, totalling 21 hours and 44 minutes. The crew contributed to hundreds of experiments in biology, Earth science, human research, physical sciences and technology development. She spent 205 days in space, 3,280 orbits of Earth and a trip of 86.9 million miles.
Dr Meir has been recognised with numerous awards and honours throughout her career, including from the American Physiological Society, the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Defense. She was named in Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2020 and recognised in the Guinness World Records: first all-female spacewalk (Oct 18, 2020).

[@SKARTHIKSELVAN]

Great presentation. Thanks.