Bonnie J. Dunbar

Bonnie J. Dunbar, born on March third, nineteen forty-nine, is a distinguished American engineer and retired NASA astronaut. With a remarkable career spanning over a decade, she participated in five Space Shuttle missions from nineteen eighty-five to nineteen ninety-eight, which included two significant dockings with the Mir space station.

A proud graduate of the University of Washington, Dunbar earned her Master of Science degree in ceramics engineering. She began her professional journey as a senior research engineer at Rockwell International's Space Division, where she played a pivotal role in designing the equipment and manufacturing processes for the ceramic tiles that formed the Space Shuttle's thermal protection system.

In nineteen seventy-eight, Dunbar joined NASA as a flight controller and payload officer, contributing to the guidance and navigation of Skylab during its de-orbiting and re-entry in July nineteen seventy-nine. Her selection as one of the nineteen astronaut candidates in NASA Astronaut Group nine in nineteen eighty marked the beginning of her extraordinary journey in space exploration.

Throughout her career, Dunbar flew on missions STS-61-A, STS-32, STS-50, STS-71, and STS-89, and she underwent cosmonaut training in Russia. After her tenure at NASA, she transitioned to leadership roles, becoming the president and CEO of the Museum of Flight in Seattle, where she championed STEM education for high school students. From twenty-thirteen to twenty-fifteen, she led the University of Houston's STEM Center and served as a faculty member in the Cullen College of Engineering. In twenty-sixteen, she was appointed the John and Bea Slattery professor of aerospace engineering at Texas A&M University, where she also directed the Institute for Engineering Education and Innovation until twenty-twenty.