Webinar: From Home to Space

Thursday, 9 april, 15:00 CET

With Mamta Patel Nagaraja, Spaceflight Engineer – NASA Headquarters

Please join us for this week’s second online event, sponsored by the Italian US Embassy in collaboration with ASI, a WIA-E Corporate Gold Member. This event will be held in English. There will be a possibility for live Q&A.

Join the event here.

United by Science

When we think of science, we think of lab coats and experiments. We think of questions and answers. But rarely do we take a step back and truly think of the incredible impact science makes on us all – on our everyday lives. From expanding our knowledge to using data to help emergency responders to partnering across the world to tackle the hardest of problems, we will take a journey together from our home on Earth to the depths of our universe. We will connect how science is all for one main purpose – humanity. On this very tiny blue dot in the vast expanse of the universe, science helps us protect and improve life – all the loved ones we have, our home, our world.

Mamta Patel Nagaraja

Dr. Mamta Patel Nagaraja currently works at NASA Headquarters as the deputy director for the Division of Science Engagement and Partnerships for the Science Mission Directorate (SMD). In this role, Dr. Nagaraja leads the overall strategy for external information technology, executive communications and strategic messaging, science mission graphic visualizations, digital media, and Science in Spanish. She is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Catholic University of America. Prior to this position, she was the lead mechanical engineer for instrument technology design for a proposed planetary mission to Venus and a science operations engineer for the LADEE mission to the Moon at NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center. Previously, she trained astronauts who flew aboard the U.S. Space Shuttle and International Space Station and supported their missions as a flight operations engineer in the Mission Control Center at NASA Johnson Space Center as well as leading the Women@NASA project. Among notable recognitions, in 2013 and 2017, Dr. Nagaraja was selected for a rare interview opportunity to become an astronaut. Dr. Nagaraja holds a bachelor of science in aerospace engineering from Texas A&M University, a master of science in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a doctor of philosophy in bioengineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology with dissertation research performed at the Emory University School of Medicine. Originally from Texas, she now lives in the Washington D.C. metro area with her husband and two children. She comes from a large family, with four siblings and dedicated, selfless parents.