Astronauts to Headline Women and Girls in Science Symposium
The McGovern Medical School Women Faculty Forum will host the seventh annual International Day of Women and Girls in Science Symposium from 3:30-6:30 p.m., February 11, in the Memorial Hermann Conference Center.
The International Day of Women and Girls in Science was established by the United Nations in 2015 and is recognized around the world. The event provides an opportunity for health care professionals and trainees to celebrate successful women in academia.
The 2025 keynote speakers are SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronauts Sarah Gillis, senior space operations engineer; and Anna Menon, lead space operations engineer. The symposium will also feature a pair of accomplished McGovern Medical School faculty: Mary Aitken, MD, MPH, FAAP, professor and Dan L Duncan Distinguished University Chair in the Department of Pediatrics, and Hui-Wen Lo, PhD, UTHealth Houston Distinguished Professor in Neuro-Oncology and professor in the Vivian L. Smith Department of Neurosurgery.
About the Keynote Speakers
Sarah Gillis oversees the SpaceX astronaut training program, which includes the development of a mission-specific curriculum and the execution of training for both NASA and commercial astronauts who fly aboard the Dragon spacecraft. She prepared NASA astronauts for the first Demo-2 and Crew-1 missions and, most recently, directly trained the Inspiration4 astronauts, the first all-civilian crew to go to orbit. She is an experienced mission control operator who has supported real-time operations for Dragon’s cargo resupply missions to and from the International Space Station as a Navigation Officer and as a crew communicator for Dragon’s human spaceflight missions.
Anna Menon manages the development of crew operations and serves in mission control as both a Mission Director and crew communicator. During her SpaceX tenure, she has led the implementation of Dragon’s crew capabilities, helped create the crew communicator operator role, and developed critical operational responses to vehicle emergencies such as fire or cabin depressurization. Menon served in mission control during multiple Dragon missions, such as Demo-2, Crew-1, CRS-22, CRS-23, Crew-3, Crew-4, and Axiom-1.