Jessica Ulrika Meir is an American NASA astronaut, marine biologist, and physiologist.
30 Facts About Jessica Meir
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Jessica Meir was previously an assistant professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, following postdoctoral research in comparative physiology at the University of British Columbia.
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Jessica Meir has studied the diving physiology and behavior of emperor penguins in Antarctica, and the physiology of bar-headed geese, which are able to migrate over the Himalayas.
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In September 2002, Meir served as an aquanaut on the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations 4 crew.
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In 2016, Jessica Meir participated in ESA CAVES, a training course in which international astronauts train in a space-analogue cave environment.
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Jessica Meir launched on September 25,2019, to the ISS onboard Soyuz MS-15, where she served as a flight Engineer during Expedition 61 and 62.
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Jessica Meir was included in Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2020.
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Jessica Meir was born in Caribou, Maine, to a Swedish mother who was a nurse, and an Israeli father of Sephardic Jewish descent who worked as a physician.
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Jessica Meir's mother is from Vasteras, Sweden; her father was born in Iraq and moved to Israel as a child.
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Jessica Meir was inspired to venture into space after watching the Space Shuttle missions on television.
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Jessica Meir knew no one who worked for NASA or for the space program.
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At the age of 13, Jessica Meir attended a youth space camp at Purdue University.
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In 2000, Jessica Meir graduated with a Master of Space Studies from the International Space University in Strasbourg, France.
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Jessica Meir performed field work at Penguin Ranch on McMurdo Sound in Antarctica to study the diving abilities of the emperor penguin while scuba diving alongside them under the ice.
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Jessica Meir studied elephant seals while they were diving in the Pacific Ocean off Northern California.
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Jessica Meir did post-doctoral research at the University of British Columbia, raising bar-headed geese so their tolerance of high altitude and low oxygen levels during flight over the Himalayas could be studied in a controlled environment.
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Jessica Meir coordinated and supported human space life science experiments that were performed by astronauts on Space Shuttle and International Space Station missions.
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Jessica Meir guided these experiments through the necessary review cycles, developed procedures that the astronauts would use on-orbit, trained crew members, and provided ground support in the Mission Control Center while the astronauts were performing the experiments on the shuttle or ISS.
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In September 2002, Jessica Meir served as an aquanaut on the joint NASA-NOAA NEEMO 4 expedition, an exploration research mission held in Aquarius, an undersea research laboratory four miles off shore from Key Largo.
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Jessica Meir was fascinated by marine biology, and hoped to coordinate a specific topic of study to combine these main interests.
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Jessica Meir received her PhD in marine biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, studying diving physiology, in 2009.
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In 2009, Jessica Meir was a semi-finalist for selection to NASA Astronaut Group 20.
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Jessica Meir was the lead capsule communicator for Expedition 47, the BEAM mission, and a HTV mission.
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Jessica Meir is a member of the science advisory board of Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation.
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On October 18,2019, Jessica Meir performed her first spacewalk alongside her colleague Christina Koch, replacing a faulty Battery Charging Discharging Unit.
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Jessica Meir played flute, piccolo, and saxophone in her youth, and enjoys reading classical literature.
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Jessica Meir enjoys recreational cycling, hiking, running, skiing, soccer and scuba diving, and holds a private pilot's license.
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Jessica Meir has visited Israel twice: the first time as a teenager with her parents and her brother, and the second time in 2016 for work as an astronaut where she gave a talk in Haifa, Israel, at the International Space University summer session.
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On International Women's Day in 2023, Jessica Meir announced the recent birth of her first child, a girl, on her Instagram account.
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Jessica Meir has appeared on two seasons of the Naked and Afraid series.