Grad from UC San Diego, USC tapped for astronaut training

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NASA selected a UC San Diego and USC graduate for training to become an astronaut this week.

Navy Lt. Deniz Burnham, a reservist, was one of 10 people selected from more than 12,000 applicants for astronaut training.

If successful, Burnham will become the youngest in a series of UC San Diego graduates to become astronauts, three of whom have served on the International Space Station in the past 18 months.

Burnham, 36, earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from UC San Diego in 2007. She did internships with local biotech companies focusing on her interest in alternative energies. Burnham earned a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering from USC in 2017.

NASA says Burnham, who lives in Alaska, has been in the energy industry for more than a decade, often improving oil rig operations. Burnham, whose work has taken her from the Arctic to Canada and across the United States, began as a field engineer and rose to become the leading operator of oil rigs.

The space agency says Burnham’s most recent work in the Navy Reserve included serving as the executive officer of SurgeMain Alameda, a Naval Sea Systems Command in Alameda.

She flies everything from seaplanes to helicopters to paragliders.

“I had a real love for aviation from a young age,” Burnham told the Mayhem podcast in 2019. “I would like to draw small pictures of helicopters. I started flying when I was 17. I got a taste of it and knew that I love it. ”

Three other UC San Diego graduates – Megan McArthur, Kate Rubins, and Jessica Meir – are part of NASA’s astronaut corps and have all served on the space station. McArthur was the last to return from orbit outpost in November.

For many years, Sally Ride was part of the faculty at UC San Diego. In 1983 she was the first American woman to travel into space on the Space Shuttle Challenger. She died of cancer in La Jolla in 2012.

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