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Retired NASA Astronaut and CNS Alumna Cady Coleman Shares Her Journey

June 26, 2024 Careers

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The International Space Station orbiting Earth
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A female astronaut
Catherine "Cady" Coleman, a retired NASA astronaut and alumna of the College of Natural Sciences. Credit: Cady Coleman.

Catherine "Cady" Coleman, a retired NASA astronaut and alumna of the College of Natural Sciences, recently shared her astronaut journey with The Boston Globe, WBZ NewsRadio's NightSide with Dan Rea, and the iVoox podcast The LIUniverse with Dr. Charles Liu. She discusses her education and preparation for NASA (including her time with CNS's Department of Polymer Science and Engineering), her six months in space, and what lessons she took back home to Western Massachusetts.

"The minimum qualifications for becoming an astronaut these days are having a master's degree in a technical field and passing the flight physical. I'd managed to nail those prerequisites by earning my PhD in polymer science and engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and serving and working in the Air Force."

— Cady Coleman in The Boston Globe

Shortly after her piece in The Boston Globe, Coleman spoke specifically about the Department of Polymer Science and Engineering with WBZ NewsRadio's NightSide with Dan Rea:

“UMass at Amherst is the best place in the world for what I studied, which was the science of polymers...molecules that behave differently ’cause they’re really long strings of them instead of like little beads.”

— Cady Coleman on WBZ NewsRadio

Read the full Boston Globe article; and listen to NightSide with Dan Rea and The LIUniverse with Dr. Charles Liu. If you have access to UMass Amherst Libraries, you can read Boston Globe articles through ProQuest. 

Article posted in Careers for Prospective students and Public

Related programs

  • Polymer Science and Engineering

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  • Polymer Science and Engineering

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