Kathleen Rubins

“There's actually an incredible amount of parallels between working in central Congo in a remote, isolated village and doing research aboard the space station.”

“I decided to do graduate studies in virology at Stanford University in California because it had a hospital, which made working on clinical applications easier.”

“My lab used to do gene expression and genomics, and we did a lot of sequencing samples from virus outbreaks.”

“From as young as I can remember, I wanted to be - in order - an astronaut, a geologist, and a biologist.”

“NASA trains you to assess emergency situations and react in a way to keep yourself and everyone else safe.”

“I've always been fascinated with science and exploring our world, from microbes to the solar system.”

“I think young folks have a good sense of what they want to do.”

“I think it's going to be amazing to see how the world of microbiology, molecular and cellular biology, and human physiology is massively changed by microgravity.”

“When I was in grad school, I wanted to be in academia forever.”

“You absolutely know you're in space when you're doing a spacewalk. That was pretty interesting because you can feel vacuum. It actually changes your vocal cords because the pressure inside the suit drops quite a bit, so your voice feels different.”

“Folks should find what really inspires them; they should always pursue what they want to do.”

“Spaceflight is a tricky business. It is definitely difficult, and I think we forget that sometime.”

“Joining NASA was very exciting, but it was the hardest decision I have had to make in my life.”

“I thought that NASA didn't take biologists and so nothing would come of it. But I knew I would regret it if I did not apply.”

“I don't think you ever really decide that you want to be an astronaut. I put in an application and hoped for the best.”

“There's a world of insights to be gained into human health and disease by understanding how gravity and space radiation influence biology.”

“When I started working at NASA and understanding what the capabilities really were of the space station and the space program, one of the biggest draws for me was the ability to do experiments in space. We can do a number of experiments where gravity is actually a variable.”

“As an undergraduate majoring in biology at the University of California, San Diego, I worked on infectious diseases at the nearby Salk Institute for Biological Studies.”