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Dr. Serena Auñón-Chancellor’S Odyssey FEATURE THE GE ORGE WASHINGTON U NIVERS ITY NASA A JourneyDr. Serena Auñón-Chancellor’s odyssey 8 SYNERGY SPRING 2019 SYNERGY Spring 2019_Guts_ForPrinterPdf_PSD.indd 8 4/18/19 1:54 AM S CHOOL OF ENG INEERING & A PPLIED SCIE NCE FEATURE then that she was developing a genuine “The first time I saw a patient and I spent NASA “Not I, nor anyone else interest in becoming an astronaut. time with the patient, I realized that this can travel that road for you. And she certainly was, but her story is is exactly where I was supposed to be, You must travel it by yourself. not one of a girl-turned-young-woman no question,” she notes emphatically. It is not far. It is within reach. with a “NASA or Bust” mindset. Near the end of her program she discovered Perhaps you have been on it since On the contrary, actually. As Serena the field of aerospace medicine. She had to you were born, and did not know. speaks, it becomes clear that putting choose a field of residency, and she already Perhaps it is everywhere - NASA front and center at various key knew that internal medicine would be her decision points in her life was not her primary specialty. It was the field she loved on water and land.” way. Becoming a NASA astronaut may and still does. She learned, however, that the have been her goal and her dream, but University of Texas Medical Branch offered – Walt Whitman she was determined first and foremost to a combined residency in both internal Leaves of Grass make education and career choices that medicine and aerospace medicine, and she fed her interests and brought her joy. decided, “Well, this is the field for me.” The aybe Walt Whitman is program had one open spot. Serena got it. right: maybe the road we “The decisions I made in my career, in travel—the journey—is my education, were not solely because I She completed her three-year residency in Meverywhere. If so, then for Dr. Serena wanted to end up at NASA,” she contends. internal medicine first, followed by an extra Auñón-Chancellor, it extends beyond “I knew I did at some point, but I didn’t year as chief resident, and then completed water and land to include low Earth orbit. let it influence me so heavily that I turned an additional aerospace medicine residency away from a path that looked interesting.” in 2007. Just prior to that, in 2006, she had Dr. Auñón-Chancellor, or simply started working at Johnson Space Center as a “Serena,” as she is known around SEAS, Preparing for college in 1993, Serena flight surgeon, a civilian physician who looks is a NASA astronaut and SEAS alumna wasn’t initially certain of what to study. after the members of the astronaut corps who lived for 197 days last year aboard Like many kids who choose engineering, and their families. She continued working in the International Space Station (ISS). She she loved the sciences and was very good that capacity until July 2009, when she was launched for the ISS on June 6 from the at math. She and her father had discussed selected to the NASA astronaut corps as one Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, engineering as a field, and she liked the of 14 members of its 20th astronaut class. and returned to Earth on December fact that engineers are problem-solvers. 20, landing again in Kazakhstan. Perhaps following somewhat in her parents’ footsteps, she chose to study at GW. Her Not three months later, on a rainy day mother had studied journalism at GW KNETEN ROCKY in early March, Serena sat down with and her father is a triple SEAS alumnus two SEAS staff members to answer with a bachelor’s, a master’s, and a doctoral questions about her recent mission degree, all in electrical engineering. aboard the ISS, her readjustment since the mission, and the decisions over the Serena selected electrical engineering and, course of her life that led to a spot on once in the program, started becoming the NASA astronaut corps. aware of all the career paths open to her. She credits her engineering friends with planting the idea of medicine in Setting Out for her mind. They thought she had the the Journey right attributes to be a good doctor As Serena recalls it, her interest in and they pushed her to consider it. space and the US space program began at around eight or nine years of age, “I went home between sophomore and when she became intrigued by shuttle junior year and talked to my parents launches and would watch them on about it and they thought, ‘Okay, great, if television, over and over again. this is what you want to do, no problem.’ And my path was kind of set at that point “We had two small televisions in the once I became pre-med,” she recalls. house at the time and I would always try and commandeer one to watch any Serena received her bachelor’s degree in program I could about the space 1997 and enrolled in medical school at program,” she says. the University of Texas-Health Science Center at Houston. She says that once Her parents noticed how intrigued she she started medical school, she knew was by the launches and realized even it was the right choice for her. SYNERGY SPRING 2019 9 SYNERGY Spring 2019_Guts_ForPrinterPdf_PSD.indd 9 4/18/19 1:54 AM FEATURE THE GE ORGE WASHINGTON U NIVERS ITY NASA laboratory that maintains a range of “A lot of folks assume, ‘Oh, you were the international experiments at all times. physician on the mission.’ Nope, I was During her mission, Serena was involved in the astronaut on the mission with the experiments on treatments for Parkinson’s physician background,” she asserts. We and Alzheimer’s Diseases, on cancer had geophysicists, we had a geologist, we therapy treatments, and on oceanic science had a test pilot . we’re all trained equally and other topics. The experiments the across the board. There is no difference.” astronauts conduct are those that can be done only in micro-gravity. For example, on Time is allotted on the space station for Serena’s mission they studied new ways to more than science, however. In addition deliver antibiotics directly to a wound site to system maintenance to keep the ISS using special hydrogels, because in micro- operating properly and daily physical gravity they can watch the way antibiotics conditioning to keep the body healthy, migrate through that gel. In oceanic astronauts can make time for star-gazing science studies, they looked at the way and Earth-gazing. Floating in micro-gravity Attired in a training version of her Extravehicular cohesive forces act in micro-gravity; on the was Serena’s favorite activity, but looking Mobility Unit spacesuit, Dr. Auñón-Chancellor ground they can’t measure cohesive forces, out the station’s cupola was a close second. awaits the start of a spacewalk training session. because gravity is an overwhelming force that won’t allow for such measurements. “The cupola’s our window to the Earth. She had made it into the astronaut corps, Looking out the cupola at night was probably but she did so by listening to herself—and “I guess the thing I’d like folks to take away one of my favorite times,” she says. others—not by following a checklist most from our mission,” she states, “is that of what she thought NASA wanted. the science we’re doing on the station is really The ISS orbits the Earth every 90 minutes, very high caliber science and it’s science so she was able to see “night,” followed by “So it was this very circuitous route. Some that impacts people down here. We did a “day,” every 45 minutes. She also was able people call it coincidence. I call it kind of tremendous amount of science up there that to see entire continents rotating toward visualizing your path and then defining it cannot be done anywhere else on this planet.” her, and massive thunderstorms looming and living it, and taking advantage of open along the coastlines of continents. Serena doors and opportunities. It all ended up She’s quick to note, however, that as a says it was the chance to see nature at its working out just fine, as it usually does,” physician on board the ISS, she wasn’t the finest. The big attraction for the crew she concludes. lead on all the medical studies. It’s a was the Northern Lights. “We would all common misconception that she would come and gather in the cupola to watch the like to clear up. station pass through [them],” she recalls. A Mission If Serena would agree with Walt Whitman Dr. Auñón-Chancellor helps conduct research on protein crystal growth that we’re all on our own journeys, she aboard the space station. likely would disagree with his notion that we travel by ourselves. That’s not her way— and it’s not NASA’s way. For her, and for NASA NASA, it’s about being part of a team. She speaks repeatedly of the role of teamwork aboard the ISS, and when asked what sorts of people NASA likes to recruit, she mentions the ability to work as part of a team as the first criterion. Humor is pretty important, too. While speaking of the close living conditions on the ISS, she adds, “We love folks with a sense of humor.
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