Students Meet Kathy Sullivan, Former NASA Astronaut and Current Member of PCAST

To close out fall semester at Ohio State Battelle Center for Science, Engineering and Public Policy, students got the opportunity to hear from and meet Kathy Sullivan.

Sullivan is a geologist, former NASA astronaut and oceanographer with a diverse background in STEM and policy. She was the first American woman to walk in space as well as the first woman to dive to the Challenger Deep (the deepest part of Earth’s oceans). She has also served as the as the administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and currently serves on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).

Sullivan was the first executive director of Battelle Center, and having her return to see how her work has been continued was certainly a highlight of the semester.

More than 50 students attended her visit as she told them about her career, including all the twists and turns from studying geology to becoming an astronaut to  promoting policy that is informed by and affects the STEM community. When describing how her career path developed, she told students that it’s never a straight line: “I had no fear of veering from the straight path,” Sullivan said.

One student asked how she navigated being the first woman in her professional spaces.

“You owe it to that position and anyone who follows that no one gets to disrespect the position,” Sullivan responded. “As a woman coming into the [space] program, the door was ajar. And we went through it. Our job was to make sure it stayed wide open for the women after us.”

Sullivan also answered questions on topics from her experience in government to her thoughts on what it would mean for NOAA to be more prominent in the American psyche.

After the event, students lined up to take pictures with her and have a chance to talk with her one-on-one, giving them a great opportunity to learn from a pioneer in her field and gain an even deeper understanding of how STEM fields interact with policy. In the end, the students got a taste of understanding that the possibilities are limitless.