Sabrina Thompson

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For the reality television contestant, see
Sabrina Thompson (Survivor contestant)
.

Sabrina Thompson
SUNY Stony Brook (BS)
  • Georgia Tech (MS)
    • Scientific career
    InstitutionsNASA Goddard Space Flight Center (2010–present)

    Sabrina Nicole Thompson (born April 9, 1985) is an American aerospace engineer. As a Flight Dynamics Lead Analyst at the

    female astronauts
    .

    Early life and education

    Sabrina Nicole Thompson

    charter bus driver;[4] she remembers her parents and grandmother inspired an "I-can-do-anything attitude" in her growing up.[5] A player on the girls' varsity basketball team in high school,[3][6] Thompson admired the athletes Cynthia Cooper, Teresa Edwards, and Teresa Weatherspoon and desired to become an artist or basketball player when she became older.[3][1] She did not know what engineers were until her final year in high school.[3][1] Later, she remarked that although her school district "didn't have the resources like the other schools on Long Island, I learned a lot. My teachers would do everything they could to get me harder work just to prepare me and help me."[5] By the end of high school, Thompson chose to study engineering at university, after her art teacher recommended she study the subject since she excelled in math and science.[1]

    Thompson graduated from high school as co-

    NASA Glenn Research Center in Ohio.[1][7]

    Career

    Thompson speaking on her role as a safety engineer in NASA Goddard's Occupational, Safety and Health Division, 2011

    In 2010,[4] Thompson was hired as a safety engineer at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland, and worked in the facility's Occupational Safety and Health Division.[1] She first met her mentor Piers Sellers, a NASA meteorologist and astronaut, during a leadership development program at NASA Goddard, and he would later inspire her to study atmospheric physics.[1] She later moved to the Navigation and Mission Design Branch at NASA Goddard and worked as a Navigation & Mission Design Engineer.[3][8] In this position, she worked on trajectories, orbit analysis, and mission design for spaceflight missions using CubeSats; research and development on using CubeSats for deep space missions; and flight dynamics of satellites in the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission.[8] She later earned a second graduate degree from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)[4][9] and has pursued a PhD in atmospheric physics at the institution since 2017.[2]

    With UMBC professor Vanderlei Martins, Thompson worked on the Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter (HARP) CubeSat that launched from the International Space Station in 2020.[10][11][12] HARP2, a copy of HARP with updated instrumentation, is set to be launched on the NASA satellite Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE)[11] by December 2023 at the earliest.[10] In 2021 and 2022, it was reported that Thompson was developing "swarms" of small satellites that can communicate with one another and obtain data on weather patterns at varied times and points of observation.[10][13]

    Thompson has spoken with students at educational institutions for the occasions of Black History Month and Engineers Week, recruited for her employer at colleges, and spoken at events which aim to educate youth about the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).[1] She was vice president of the local Greenbelt Space Chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers in her initial years at NASA Goddard.[1]

    NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver (left at table), astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson (center), and Sabrina Thompson speaking at NASA Headquarters for Women's History Month, 2011

    Thompson told Women's Wear Daily in 2022 that she had applied to the NASA astronaut program two times, including once in 2020, and that she plans to reapply in 2024.[4][14]

    The game studio Neon, founded in 2020, worked with Thompson to check the accuracy of technical language used in their blockchain game Shrapnel.[15]

    Girl in Space Club

    In 2018, Thompson created a

    digital prints.[4]

    In 2022, its projects to design a

    female astronauts were featured by Women's Wear Daily and CNBC.[4][14] That year Thompson said the space suit was in the "research and design phase" and that she was in the "early stages" of meeting with collaborators and seeking investors and grants for funding. She plans to make the flight suit available for purchase for $600.[4][14]

    The Girl in Space Club hosts workshops for youth in Baltimore which combine STEM topics with fashion.[16]

    References

    Public Domain This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration
    .

    1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Jarrell, Elizabeth M. (July 20, 2021). "Dynamic Sabrina Thompson Not Your Typical Flight Dynamicist". NASA. Retrieved November 16, 2022.
    2. ^
      NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
      . Retrieved November 19, 2022.
    3. ^ a b c d e f "Sabrina Thompson". Women@NASA. Retrieved November 19, 2022.
    4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Feitelberg, Rosemary (June 23, 2022). "NASA Engineer and Girl in Space Club Founder Talks New Frontiers". Women's Wear Daily. Retrieved November 15, 2022.
    5. ^
      Newspapers.com
      .
    6. Newspapers.com
      .
    7. ^ a b Temkin, Kristen (April 4, 2018). "Sabrina Thompson '07: Girl In Space". Stony Brook University. Retrieved November 19, 2022.
    8. ^ a b "Stony Brook 40 Under Forty: Sabrina Thompson'07". Stony Brook University. Retrieved November 28, 2022.
    9. ^ "MS Thesis Defense: Sabrina Thompson". physics.umbc.edu. University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Retrieved November 20, 2022.
    10. ^ a b c Hille, Karl B. (August 31, 2021). "NASA Works to Give Satellite Swarms a Hive Mind". NASA. Retrieved November 26, 2022.
    11. ^ a b "HARP marks NASA's first attempt to put a polarimeter on a CubeSat". NASA. May 14, 2020. Retrieved November 26, 2022.
    12. ^ "HARP CubeSat". University of Maryland, Baltimore. Retrieved November 26, 2022.
    13. Nextgov
      . Retrieved November 26, 2022.
  • ^ a b c d e Smith, Morgan (November 11, 2022). "This 37-year-old NASA engineer is designing a spacesuit for women on the side: 'It's not just cool, it's necessary'". CNBC. Retrieved November 15, 2022.
  • ^ Takahashi, Dean (June 5, 2023). "Left Fielder Media partners with Neon to bring characters to life in Shrapnel". VentureBeat. Retrieved July 7, 2023.
  • WMAR
    . Retrieved April 28, 2024.
    • Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sabrina_Thompson&oldid=1221292866"