Tamara E. Jernigan

Tamara Elizabeth "Tammy" Jernigan, Ph.D. (born May 7, 1959, in Chattanooga, Tennessee) is an American scientist and former NASA astronaut and a veteran of five shuttle missions. She currently serves as Deputy Principal Associate Director in the Weapons and Complex Integration (WCI) organization at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.[1]

Tamara Jernigan
Born (1959-05-07) May 7, 1959
Chattanooga, Tennessee
StatusRetired
NationalityAmerican
OccupationScientist
Space career
NASA Astronaut
Time in space
63d 01h 24m
Selection1985 NASA Group
Total EVAs
1
Total EVA time
7 hours 55 minutes
MissionsSTS-40, STS-52, STS-67, STS-80, STS-96
Mission insignia

Education

Jernigan attended Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe Springs, CA. She graduated in 1977. Jernigan attended Stanford University, where she earned a B.S. degree in physics in 1981, an M.S. in engineering science in 1983. At the University of California, Berkeley, she received an M.S. in astronomy in 1985. In 1988 she was awarded a Ph.D. in space physics and astronomy from Rice University. Her research focused on the modeling of high-velocity outflows in regions of star formation, gamma-ray bursters, and the study of radiation produced by interstellar shock waves.[2]

NASA career

Jernigan began working for NASA in June 1981 at the Ames Research Center while earning her degrees at Stanford and Berkeley. She worked at the research center until June 1985 when she was selected to be an astronaut.[3]

Tamara Jernigan performing EVA during STS-96

She entered the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1986 and retired in 2001. Her first trip to space was on June 5, 1991.[4] She flew on five Space Shuttle program missions (three on Columbia and one each on Endeavour and Discovery) and logged 1512 hours in space. In her last mission on Discovery in 1999, she performed an extra-vehicular activity for 7 hours and 55.5 minutes.[5]

Jernigan has served as Deputy Chief of the Astronaut Office, assisting with the management of both military and civilian astronauts and support personnel and as Deputy for the Space Station program where she developed and advocated Astronaut Office positions on the design and operation of the International Space Station. She also represented NASA management on the U.S. negotiating team in Moscow during technical interchange meetings designed to resolve crew training, crew rotation, and operational issues.[2]

Awards

She is the recipient of the NASA Distinguished Service Medal and the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal.[2]

Personal

She currently resides in Pleasanton, California. She is married and has a child, Jeffrey Wisoff with former astronaut Peter Wisoff. They both currently work at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

References
  1. "Dr. Tamara Jernigan | Science Mission Directorate". science.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2019-01-15.
  2. "Report of the Assessment Committee for the National Space Weather Program" (PDF). Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorological Services and Supporting Research (OFCM). June 2006. Retrieved 16 January 2019. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  3. "Women in Aviation and Space History - Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum". airandspace.si.edu. Retrieved 2019-01-15.
  4. Space sciences. Gale (Firm) (2nd ed.). Detroit, Mich.: Gale, Cengage Learning. 2012. ISBN 9780028662190. OCLC 781937044.CS1 maint: others (link)
  5. "Astronaut Bio: T. Jernigan 11/2001". www.jsc.nasa.gov.



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