Nagin Cox | |
|---|---|
 Cox in 2018 | |
| Born | 1965 (age 59–60) |
| Alma mater | Cornell University |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Jet Propulsion Laboratory North American Aerospace Defense Command |
Zainab Nagin Cox (born 1965) is a spacecraft operations engineer at Jet Propulsion Laboratory who received the NASA Exceptional Service Medal. Asteroid 14061 was named "Nagincox" after her in 2015.
Cox was born in Bangalore [1] and grew up in Kuala Lumpur and Kansas City, Kansas. [1] She went to school at Shawnee Mission East High School, [2] where she became interested in Star Trek and Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. [3] She studied engineering and psychology at Cornell University, graduating in 1986, [4] and earned a master's degree in space operations systems engineering from Air Force Institute of Technology in 1990. [5]
After graduating, Cox worked for the United States Air Force as a space operations officer, in F-16 aircrew training. [6] She also worked as an orbital analyst at the North American Aerospace Defense Command. [5] Cox has worked as a spacecraft operations engineer at Jet Propulsion Laboratory since 1993 [5] and has been involved with several interplanetary robotic missions, including Galileo , InSight , Kepler, and the Mars Curiosity rover. [7] She is a tactical mission lead, in charge of the uplink, downlink, and advance planning teams. [8] Asteroid 14061 Nagincox, discovered in 1996, was named after her in 2015. [9] She won the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, the Bruce Murray award in 2014 and has won the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal twice. [10] [11] [12]
Cox is passionate about increasing diversity within sciences, engineering and NASA. [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] She served on the board of directors at Griffith Observatory, [18] as well as on the President's Council for Cornell Women Alumni. [19] She is an invited speaker for the United States Department of State, travelling the world and talking about her career and NASA's robotic space exploration program. [20] In 2014, she visited Pakistan, Rio de Janeiro, and Bahia, inspiring young women from unprivileged communities to study sciences and engineering. [21] She was a keynote speaker at SIGGRAPH 2016 [22] [23] and visited Bosnia and Herzegovina in the same year, touring the country with the United States Department of State. [24] [25] She gave a TEDx talk at Beacon Street in 2017, which was later chosen by Wired as one of the best science talks. [26] [27] "What time is it on Mars?" has been viewed almost two million times. [28] She visited Kuwait in 2018, discussing their 2021 Mars mission. [29] [30]
