Meet Jessica Watkins: The only black woman in NASA’s newest class

Jun 14, 2017

On Wednesday, NASA announced its first class of astronaut candidates since 2013.

Out of a record number of 18,300 applicants, only twelve people made it to that final class, and of them, one is Jessica Watkins, the only black woman in the group.

Watkins, who is 29 years old and hails from Lafayette, Colorado, has wanted to be an astronaut her whole life. She majored in mechanical engineering at Stanford and then switched to studying planetary geology, which was more in line with her passions. She graduated with her doctorate in geology at UCLA and then started working on the Mars rover.

In addition to her excitement over the chance to fulfill her childhood dream, Watkins said that she was excited about what NASA had done in order to promote diversity not only within NASA itself but within the STEM field generally.

— NASA will send its first African-American astronaut to the ISS —

https://twitter.com/eveewing/status/873914514462437376

“I’m very excited about the diversity on this team, this amazing group of people. I think that says a lot about NASA and their goals towards creating a diverse workforce,” she said. “I think the thing about diversity is that it allows for experiences that may not be exactly the same to bring different things to the table. And then the other side of that… is the idea of being able to be a face to others who may not see people who look like them in STEM fields in general, and doing cool things like going to space.”

She also spoke about another of her passions: encouraging girls to pursue their dreams. She said that it was so important for women and girls to have a female mentor to guide them through.

“That is something that has really pushed me to this point in my life,” she said. “I’ve been really grateful and lucky to have the mentorship support that I’ve received from a lot of my teachers and professors and supervisors. That’s been something that’s really important for me, and I think help with that idea of persistence, having a mentor who can continue to push you and encourage you in a STEM field is really helpful.”