San Diego Union-Tribune, June 17, 2013

Jessica Meir took this image of herself at the Cape Crozier emperor penguin colony in Antarctica. 

Biologist Jessica Meir, who earned a doctorate at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography for physiology research about penguins and birds that could help space travelers, was chosen for astronaut training Monday by NASA.

Meir, 35, was among four women and four men named to the astronaut corps by NASA, which made the announcement on the eve of the day 30 years ago when Sally Ride became the first American woman to travel into space. Ride later joined the UCSD faculty and lived in La Jolla until she died of cancer last year.

The seven other new astronaut candidates -- or "ascans" -- include Maj. Nicole Aunapu Mann, a Marine who flies F/A 18 fighter jets, and Army Maj. Anne McClain, a helicopter pilot. The fourth woman, Christina Hammock, is a scientist.

NASA said the team -- which also is made up of Andrew Morgan, Tyler Hague, Victor Glover, and Josh Cassada -- could earn their way on to the first manned missions to an asteroid and to Mars. No dates have been set for either of those missions, but NASA continues to send astronauts to the International Space Station. The announcement was made by Charles Bolden, the former Camp Pendleton-based fighter pilot and astronaut who is now head of NASA.

Meir was born in Caribou, Maine, and went on to earn degrees at Brown University and the International Space University before she took her doctorate at Scripps. Most recently, she has been serving as an assistant professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. The Harvard position represents the extension of her interest in health and medicine. She has done physiology work for NASA, and briefly served as an "aquanaut" on the space agency's underwater habitat in Florida, which is used to simulate the isolation and pressures of space.

Meir has long studied the physiology of birds and marine animals, looking for information that might be applied, on some level, to the fragile and taxing environment astronauts face while working and living in zero-gravity. Her research has included the study of bar-headed geese, birds that are famous for surviving low oxygen conditions during high altitude journeys, including trips above the Himalayas. She did some of that work as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of British Columbia, where Meir trained geese to fly in a wind tunnel to better study the bird's physiology. While at Scripps, Meir made seasonal trips to the Antarctic to study the physiology of Emperor penguins, which have an enhanced ability to store oxygen and to withstand pressure during deep dives. She did some of the research while scuba diving beneath ice that was seven feet thick.

"Diving down here -- especially if you have the penguins around you or the Weddell seals come by -- is really, really breathtaking," Meir says in the YouTube video just below.

Paul Popoganis, a Scripps researcher who served as Meir's advisor, said, "Dr. Meir always demonstrated that combination of intellect, initiative, and enthusiasm to become an excellent scientist as well as astronaut. She enjoys facing intellectual as well as physical challenges, and she always finds a way to get the job done. She is equally adept at bench work in the laboratory as well as field work in the harsh Antarctic environment. In addition, she is also a certified pilot, and an accomplished scuba diver. All these skills, and talents will serve her well as an astronaut."