First Crew - Dr. Norah Patten

Dr. Norah Patten is an Irish aeronautical engineer and an award winning STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) advocate from Ballina, County Mayo, and is aiming to become the first Irish person to travel to space

Born in Ballina, County Mayo, Norah was fascinated by space as a child after visiting NASA when she was 11 years old. She never let go of that interest and passion for space; designing rockets for her junior certificate art project, visiting NASA on numerous occasions as a teenager, and strategically selecting to study Aeronautical Engineering at the University of Limerick.

Patten completed a work placement at Boeing during her undergraduate degree program and continued her education at the University of Limerick, where she obtained her doctorate in Aerodynamics in 2011. She completed a work placement in Bell Labs during this time.

Patten participated European Space Agency supported Alpbach Summer School in 2008 and graduated from the International Space University Space Studies Program in 2010.

Patten worked as a lecturer and project manager at University of Limerick before joining the Irish Composites Centre as the Communications and Outreach Manager in 2012. Patten initiated and managed "The Only Way is Up" project, which sent Ireland’s first student experiment to the International Space Station in 2014, through a commercial agreement with NanoRacks.

She was awarded an International Astronautical Federation Emerging Space Leaders Grant and was a panellist on the Next Generation Plenary in 2015 . Patten has been selected as department and team project Chair at the International Space University on numerous occasions and was elected as a member of the voluntary global faculty of the International Space University in 2016. Patten was the first Irish participant at Project PoSSUM and has completed high-g flights, hypoxia training, aviation egress training and spacesuit testing and evaluations.

Bioastronautics is the study associated with the support of life in space, including the design of payloads, space habitats, and life support systems.