1. Millie Elizabeth Hughes-Fulford was an American medical investigator, molecular biologist, and payload specialist who flew aboard the NASA Space Shuttle Columbia in June 1991.
11 Facts About Millie Hughes-Fulford
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Millie Hughes-Fulford graduated from Mineral Wells High School in 1962, then entered college at the age of 16 and earned her Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry and biology from Tarleton State University in 1968.
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Millie Hughes-Fulford then began her graduate work studying plasma chemistry at Texas Woman's University as a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow from 1968 to 1971 and earned her Ph.
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Out of the 8000 applicants, Millie Hughes-Fulford was in the top 20 but did not make it into NASA Astronaut Group 8.
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Millie Hughes-Fulford was not deterred and continued pursuing a career in space; she was a member of the US Army Reserve Medical Corps, achieving the rank of major and serving from 1981 until 1995.
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SLS-1 was the first mission to have a crew with three female members, and Millie Hughes-Fulford was both NASA's first female payload specialist in orbit and the first representative of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs in space.
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Millie Hughes-Fulford created and directed the Hughes-Fulford Laboratory at the San Francisco VA Medical Center, where her research focus included immunology, bioastronautics, and oncology.
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Millie Hughes-Fulford flew her most recent experiments to ISS on a SpaceX rocket in collaboration with the ISS International Laboratory, the European Space Agency, and the National Institutes of Health.
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Millie Hughes-Fulford contributed over 120 papers and abstracts, including on bone and cancer growth regulation, and on the effect of spaceflight on the immune system at the cell molecular and systems biology level.
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Millie Hughes-Fulford was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Society for Gravitational Science and Biology, American Society for Bone and Mineral Research, American Society for Cell Biology, American Society of Hematology and the Association of Space Explorers.
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Millie Hughes-Fulford died in Mill Valley, California, on February 2,2021, of lymphoma, which was the subject of her last research paper.