Dana Bolles

Last updated
Dana Bolles
Alma mater
Known fordisability rights advocacy
Awards2014 NASA Equal Employment Opportunity Medal
Scientific career
Fields Rehabilitation engineering
Institutions NASA

Dana Bolles is an American spaceflight engineer and advocate for those with disabilities in STEM. She has worked at NASA since 1995 in a variety of fields. She is also an ambassador for the American Association for the Advancement of Science's If/then initiative. [1]

Contents

Early life and education

Bolles was born without arms or legs. [2] She has stated that she became interested in visiting space at an early age since it would allow her to move without the assistance of her wheelchair. [3] [4]

She credited teachers who accepted her in mainstream classrooms as very important to setting her on a path for success in her chosen career. [5] [6]

Bolles earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from California State University, Long Beach in 1993, [4] and has a master's degree in rehabilitation engineering and technology from San Francisco State University. [7]

Career

Bolles started working at NASA in 1995 as an engineer in regulatory compliance, including work on environmental regulations. [8] This later expanded to work in protecting humans in outer space and scientific communications. [3]

She also volunteers as an advocate for women, [9] people with disabilities, and members of the LGBT community. Her advocacy has a particular focus on the challenges that people with disabilities encounter in their lives, [4] and has spoken about the stereotypes they often face, mentioning that people tend to respond the most to disability compared to other intersectionalities. [8]

In 2021 Bolles joined a group of people with physical disabilities in a zero gravity parabolic flight. [10] [11]

Bolles was one of the women depicted in the Smithsonian Institution's 2022 exhibit spotlighting women in STEM. [12]

Awards and recognition

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sally Ride</span> American physicist and astronaut (1951–2012)

Sally Kristen Ride was an American astronaut and physicist. Born in Los Angeles, she joined NASA in 1978, and in 1983 became the first American woman and the third woman to fly in space, after cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova in 1963 and Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982. She was the youngest American astronaut to have flown in space, having done so at the age of 32.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mae Jemison</span> American astronaut, doctor and engineer (born 1956)

Mae Carol Jemison is an American engineer, physician, and former NASA astronaut. She became the first African-American woman to travel into space when she served as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992. Jemison joined NASA's astronaut corps in 1987 and was selected to serve for the STS-47 mission, during which the Endeavour orbited the Earth for nearly eight days on September 12–20, 1992.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kathryn D. Sullivan</span> American astronaut (born 1951)

Kathryn Dwyer Sullivan is an American geologist, oceanographer, and former NASA astronaut and US Navy officer. She was a crew member on three Space Shuttle missions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Annie Easley</span> American mathematician and rocket scientist

Annie Easley was an African American computer scientist and mathematician who made critical contributions to NASA's rocket systems and energy technologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics</span> Group of academic disciplines

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is an umbrella term used to group together the distinct but related technical disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The term is typically used in the context of education policy or curriculum choices in schools. It has implications for workforce development, national security concerns, and immigration policy, with regard to admitting foreign students and tech workers.

Yajaira Sierra-Sastre is a Puerto Rican materials scientist, educator, and aspiring astronaut. She was part of a six-person crew, and the only Hispanic, selected to participate in a four-month-long, Mars analog mission funded by NASA. Sierra-Sastre aspires to become the first Puerto Rican woman to travel to outer space.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ellen Stofan</span> Planetary geologist and NASA scientist

Ellen Renee Stofan is Under Secretary for Science and Research at The Smithsonian and was previously the Director of the National Air and Space Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women in space</span> Women who travel to space

Women have flown and worked in outer space since almost the beginning of human spaceflight. A considerable number of women from a range of countries have worked in space, though overall women are still significantly less often chosen to go to space than men, and by June, 2020 constitute only 12% of all astronauts who have been to space. Yet, the proportion of women among space travelers is increasing substantially over time. The first woman to fly in space was Soviet Valentina Tereshkova, aboard the Vostok 6 space capsule on June 16–19, 1963. Tereshkova was a textile-factory assembly worker, rather than a pilot like the male cosmonauts flying at the time, chosen for propaganda value, her devotion to the Communist Party, and her years of experience in sport parachuting, which she used on landing after ejecting from her capsule. Women were not qualified as space pilots and workers co-equal to their male counterparts until 1982. By October 2021, most of the 70 women who have been to space have been United States citizens, with missions on the Space Shuttle and on the International Space Station. Other countries have flown one, two or three women in human spaceflight programs. Additionally one woman of dual Iranian-US citizenship has participated as a tourist on a US spaceflight.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chanda Prescod-Weinstein</span> American cosmologist (born c. 1982)

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is an American theoretical cosmologist and particle physicist at the University of New Hampshire. She is also an advocate of increasing diversity in science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aisha Bowe</span> Bahamian-American aerospace engineer

Aisha Bowe is a Bahamian-American aerospace engineer, founder, STEM advocate, and entrepreneur. She is the founder of CEO of STEMBoard, a technology company, and LINGO, an educational tech company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taylor Richardson</span>

Taylor Denise Richardson is an American advocate, activist, speaker, student and philanthropist. She has crowdfunded over $40,000 to send girls to see the films A Wrinkle in Time and Hidden Figures. She attended Space Camp and has expressed interest in becoming an astronaut and doctor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vanessa E. Wyche</span> American engineer, NASAs thirteenth Director of Johnson Space Center

Vanessa E. Wyche is an American engineer and civil servant who is currently serving as the Director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) since 2021. A NASA employee for over 30 years, Wyche served previously as Deputy Director and Lead Engineer of JSC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diana Trujillo</span> Colombian-American aerospace engineer

Lady Diana Trujillo Pomerantz is a Colombian-American aerospace engineer at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She currently leads the engineering team at JPL responsible for the robotic arm of the Perseverance rover. On February 18, 2021, Trujillo hosted the first ever Spanish-language NASA transmission of a planetary landing, for the Perseverance rover landing on Mars.

STEM in 30 is a non-commercial online science educational program for middle school students produced by the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. The show is hosted by science-educators Marty Kelsey and Beth Wilson. The program is released on a monthly basis throughout the school year free through the museum's website, YouTube and social media as well as broadcast on NASA-TV. Each episode is typically a half hour and features special guests and different science, math, engineering or technology topics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kimberly Arcand</span> American science communicator and data visualizer

Kimberly Kowal Arcand is a data visualizer and science communicator for NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. She is also the visualization coordinator for the Aesthetics and Astronomy image response project at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Anita Marshall is an American geoscience education researcher and disability activist. She is known for her research on and personal experience with disability in geology.

Naia Butler-Craig is a science communicator and an American aerospace engineer.

Josephine Santiago-Bond, a Filipina-American systems engineer, is the creator and chief of the Advanced Engineering Development Branch at National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). She contributed to the 2017 Regolith and Environment Science and Oxygen and Lunar Volatiles Extraction (RESOLVE) project at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC), which aimed to map lunar compounds. She also heads the Safety and Mission Assurance department’s institutional division at KSC.

Katya Celeste Echazarreta González is a Mexican electrical engineer, science communicator, and Citizen Astronaut. She became the first Mexican-born woman in space as part of Space for Humanity's Citizen Astronaut Program, launched June 4, 2022.

Crystal Renee Emery is a filmmaker and founder and CEO of URU The Right To Be, Inc., a nonprofit content production company. She is an If/Then ambassador and was featured in the Smithsonian's "#IfThenSheCan - The Exhibit", a collection of life-sized 3D-printed statues of role models in STEM.

References

  1. Whelan/ABC7, Eileen (2020-10-08). "Of 29% of women in STEM careers only 4% are Latinas; How 2 women are changing that". WJLA. Retrieved 2021-09-21.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  2. "Congenital amputee learns to walk on her new legs". La Mirada Review. 1977-08-14. p. 5. Retrieved 2022-07-05.
  3. 1 2 Newby, Kara. "Dana Bolles". The Works Museum. Retrieved 2021-09-21.
  4. 1 2 3 "| IF/THEN® Collection". www.ifthencollection.org. Retrieved 2021-09-21.
  5. ""I love the fact that we're serving the public." An interview with Dana Bolles". StoryCorps Archive. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  6. "Thank You, Teachers! - NASA Science". science.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  7. "National Disability Employment Awareness Month". ASEE Prism; Washington. Vol. 26, no. 2. October 2016. p. 47 via ProQuest.
  8. 1 2 "New Science: Dana Bolles". California Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 2021-09-21.
  9. "Supreme Court abortion ruling touches off second day of raucous protests nationwide". NBC News. June 25, 2022. Retrieved 2022-07-05.
  10. Morris, Amanda (26 October 2021). "Floating the Possibility Of Disabled Astronauts". New York Times, Late Edition (East Coast); New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. pp. D.1 via ProQuest.
  11. Richardson, Brandon (2021-10-25). "The future of space will be ADA accessible thanks to Mission: AstroAccess • Long Beach Business Journal". Long Beach Business Journal. Retrieved 2022-07-05.
  12. Tran, David (2022-03-21). "Meet Five DC-Area Women Depicted by Those Bright Orange Smithsonian Statues - Washingtonian" . Retrieved 2022-07-05.
  13. Kovo, Yael (2018-03-23). "Awards received by Space Biosciences staff since 2008". NASA. Retrieved 2021-09-24.