Jessica Watkins (NASA Photo – Robert Markowitz)
Astronaut Jessica Watkins, who in 2022 became the first Black woman on the International Space Station, will return to Caltech on April 7 to share the story of her career and her thoughts on space exploration.
By News Desk
After earning her PhD at UCLA, Watkins, a planetary geologist, completed postdoctoral studies at Caltech. While at the Institute, she worked on the Mars Science Laboratory mission’s Curiosity rover with John Grotzinger, Caltech’s Harold Brown Professor of Geology and the Ted and Ginger Jenkins Leadership Chair of the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences.
NASA selected Watkins to join its astronaut program in 2017. “My time at Caltech really did help shape who I am as a researcher as well as … enable me to be successful in this job,” Watkins said in a 2022 interview while still aboard the ISS, where she served for 170 days as a mission specialist on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-4 mission.
During her upcoming talk, she will recount adventures from her career so far and offer a glimpse of what lies ahead. The talk is free and open to the public and will be held at 5:30 p.m. in Beckman Auditorium. Pre-registration is recommended.
Source: Caltech
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, please consider supporting the Colorado Boulevard’s journalism.
Billionaires, hedge fund owners and local imposters have a powerful hold on the information that reaches the public. Colorado Boulevard stands to serve the public interest – not profit motives.
While fairness guides everything we do, we know there is a right and a wrong position in the fight against racism and climate crisis while supporting reproductive rights and social justice. We provide a fresh perspective on local politics – one so often missing from so-called ‘local’ journalism.
You can access Colorado Boulevard’s paywall-free journalism because of our unique reader-supported model. People like you, informed readers, keep us independent, beholden to no outside influence, and accessible to everyone.
Please consider supporting Colorado Boulevard today. Thank you. (Click to Support)
Leave a Reply