Kathryn D. Sullivan

Kathryn Sullivan
Born	Kathryn Dwyer Sullivan (1951-10-03) October 3, 1951 (age 73) Paterson, New Jersey, U.S.
Education	University of California, Santa Cruz (BS) Dalhousie University (MS, PhD)
Awards	NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal NASA Exceptional Service Medal (2) NASA Space Flight Medal (3)
Space career
NASA astronaut
Rank	Captain, USN
Time in space	22d 4h 49m
Selection	NASA Group 8 (1978)
Total EVAs	1
Total EVA time	3h 29m
Missions	STS-41-G STS-31 STS-45
Mission insignia
Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
In office March 1, 2013 – January 20, 2017 Acting: March 1, 2013 – March 6, 2014
President	Barack Obama
Preceded by	Jane Lubchenco
Succeeded by	Benjamin Friedman (acting)
Scientific career
Fields	Geology Oceanography
Institutions	NASA Rice University COSI Columbus Ohio State University NOAA
Thesis	The Structure and Evolution of the Newfoundland Basin, Offshore Eastern Canada (1978)
Doctoral advisor	Michael John Keen

Kathryn Dwyer Sullivan (born October 3, 1951) is an American geologist, oceanographer, and former NASA astronaut and US Navy officer. She was a crew member on three Space Shuttle missions.

A graduate of University of California, Santa Cruz, in the United States, and Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada—where she earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in geology in 1978—Sullivan was selected as one of the six women among the 35 astronaut candidate in NASA Astronaut Group 8, the first group to include women. During her training, she became the first woman to be certified to wear a United States Air Force pressure suit, and on July 1, 1979, she set an unofficial sustained American aviation altitude record for women. During her first mission, STS-41-G, Sullivan performed the first extra-vehicular activity (EVA) by an American woman. On her second, STS-31, she helped deploy the Hubble Space Telescope. On the third, STS-45, she served as Payload Commander on the first Spacelab mission dedicated to NASA's Mission to Planet Earth.

Sullivan was Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) after being confirmed by the US Senate on March 6, 2014. Her tenure ended on January 20, 2017, after which she was designated as the 2017 Charles A. Lindbergh Chair of Aerospace History at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, and also served as a Senior Fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. On June 7, 2020, Sullivan became the first woman to dive into the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of Earth's oceans. In September 2021, President Joe Biden appointed her to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.