Maine Voices Live features 1:1 conversations between Portland Press Herald writers and notable Mainers. Audience members can experience a memorable night with a Q&A at the end. 

Born and raised in Caribou, Jessica Meir was selected by NASA in 2013. She served as a flight engineer on the International Space Station for Expedition 61 and 62 from 2019 to 2020.

After traveling 86.9 million miles, including 3,280 orbits of Earth, Meir returned from space in April to a very different planet than the one she left seven months before. In addition to talking about life as an astronaut and her wide-ranging scientific research, she will describe watching the COVID-19 pandemic unfold from space.

Meir holds a BA in Biology from Brown University, an MS in Space Studies from the International Space University and a Ph.D. in Marine Biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

For her Ph.D. research, Dr. Meir studied the diving physiology of marine mammals and birds, focusing on oxygen depletion in diving emperor penguins in the Antarctic and elephant seals in Northern California. From 2000 to 2003, Dr. Meir worked for Lockheed Martin’s Human Research Facility, supporting human physiology research. During this time, she also participated in research flights on NASA’s reduced gravity aircraft and served as an aquanaut in an underwater habitat for NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO).

Meir will be interviewed by Portland Press Herald staff reporter Gillian Graham.

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