![Photo of Catherine Grace "Cady" Coleman](/women_pictures/Coleman_Catherine Grace "Cady".png)
Catherine Grace "Cady" Coleman
Personal Information
Born: 1960
Country of Birth: USA
Nationality: USA
Ethnicity: White
Education
MIT BS Chemistry 1983; University of Massachusetts Amherst PhD Polymer Science & Engineering 1991
""I want to live on the space station," she says, "and I don't really care how I get there." (cnn.com); "
— Catherine Grace "Cady" Coleman
Professional Life
Field of Study: chemist, engineer, former United States Air Force colonel, and retired NASA astronaut
Institution/Corporation: NASA
Degrees & Memberships: AMember of the Boards of: Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Greenfield community College, dent the Future; Member: American Chemical society, Society for Photo-Optical Instrumentation engineers (SPIE), american Association of University Women, International Women's Air & Space Museum
Awards & Achievements
Awards: None found
Achievements: veteran of two Space Shuttle missions; after 6 months as the Lead Robotics & Lead Science Officer departed the International Space Station on May 23, 2011 as a crew member of Expedition 27 after logging 159 days in space; has a total of over 4,330 hours in space; during 1999 NASA mission STS-93 was in charge of deploying the Chandra X-ray Observatory & its Inertial Upper Stage out of the shuttle's cargo bay; served as Chief of Robotics for the Astronaut Office to include robotic arms operations & training for all space Shuttle & ISS missions; 2004 was an aquanaut during NEEMO 7 mission aboard the Aquarius underwater lab & spent 11 days underwater; since 2015 has been a guest speaker at Baylor College of Medicine's children's program "Saturday Morning Science;"is the Global Explorer in Residence at Arizona State University & co-host of the podcast "Mission: Interplanetary" launched on March 23, 2011; is an expert on long-term space livability issues
1978-89 was an exchange student in Norway with the AFS Intercultural Program
as an undergraduate was a member of the intercollegiate rowing crew
1988 entered active duty at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base as a research chemist & was a surface analysis consultant on the NASA Long duration Exposure Facilty experiement
Retired from the Air Force in 2009 as a colonel
1995 on the NASA science mission USML-2 reported seeing a UFO to Houston Mission control
Retired from NASA 2016 after almost 24 years with them
is part of the band Bandella with fellow astronauts Stephen Robinson & Chris Hadfield & Micki Pettit, wife of astronaut Donald Pettit, playing the flute
took several flutes to space & played a duet with with Jethro Tull & with the Irish band The Chieftains
holds an amateur radio license
2019 was 1 of the astronauts feature on a set of commemorative stamps issued by the Irish postal service
2018 gave a graduation address to the only graduate of Cuttyhunk Elementary School on Cuttyhunk Island, MA
was co-anchor of ABC News Lives' coverage of the SpaceX launch & the Perseverance Mars rover landing
coached Sandra Bullock for her role in the movie "Gravity"
enjoys flying, scuba diving, sports & music