Shownotes
Dr. Shawna Pandya is an astronaut, physician, and research scientist who has dedicated her career to advancing space medicine and biomedical sciences.
As an astronaut with the International Institute For Astronautical Sciences, Shawna is actively involved in pioneering research missions on suborbital flights, focusing on the biomedical and fluid physics domains.
Her work is at the cutting edge of space health, exploring how space can serve as the next great research laboratory for humanity’s most pressing health challenges.
Growing up in Canada, inspired by the achievements of trailblazing astronauts like Dr. Roberta Bondar, Shawna charted a path that combined her love for space, science, and medicine. Her journey reflects a commitment to making space accessible and relevant to all, advocating for the inclusion of diverse talents and new avenues in the evolving space industry.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
• How Shawna’s childhood dreams led her to a career in space medicine.
• The importance of space missions in advancing biomedical sciences.
• Insights into the ongoing research at the International Institute For Astronautical Sciences.
• The challenges and opportunities in making space accessible to broader communities.
• Shawna’s vision for the future of space health and its impact on terrestrial medicine.
Quote:
“You blink and suddenly there are 4 new avenues that we never even imagined were possible. And so even if there was historically no role for you or no path for you within space and human spaceflight, I encourage you to create your own trajectory.”
- Dr. Shawna Pandya
Episode Links:
• Dr. Shawna Pandya on LinkedIn
• Dr. Shawna Pandya on Facebook
• The International Institute For Astronautical Sciences
• NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC)
Credits:
Production by CxS Partners LTD
Executive Producer: Toby Goodman
Audio & Sound Design: Lee Turner
Find your place in the business of space: https://interastra.space
Transcripts
We've seen that for decades that there have been incredible returns from the International Space Station in terms of biomedical sciences, in terms of what we learn in terms of different physical sciences processes.
And I think the more we catalyze that access to space, the more we're gonna give humans and scientists a platform on which to think creatively and explore and make even more discoveries.
Hi. I'm Doctor Shawna Pandya, and you are listening to 'Your Business In Space'.
I am astronaut 2 at the International Institute For Astronautical Sciences, and I've just been named the double I s o two research mission on suborbital flight with the delta class of spacecraft with Virgin Galactic.
This means that we get to do cool science in the period of microgravity that is forwarded to us, and we will be building on the legacy of scientific payloads and research that we pioneered with our first research flight, double I f o one, and that involves scientific experiments in the biomedical and fluid physics domains.
So when we talk about the biomedical aspect of the science, we are still in the middle of our down select for the final payloads for our upcoming double a s o two mission, but we will likely be building on some of the cool experiments that we have pioneered with our first research mission when Kelly Girardi, who will be joining us on this mission and was our first astronaut from the organization, that she pioneered and worked on. So I was the medical lead and the PI for a continuous glucose monitor, and that was the first time this device had been flown into space on suborbital flight.
And why that's important is we have data from longer duration orbital flight suggesting that astronauts, being the healthiest of the healthy, still develop prediabetic changes and signs of insulin resistance, but we don't know how quickly that occurs.
And so looking at glucose changes in the healthy individual on a suborbital flight helps us get exposure to those changing gravitational fields that microgravity period on a much shorter scale and look for differences to gain in the site. It also allows us to verify and validate the safety of this continuous glucose monitor in a spaceflight environment, meaning that we are catalyzing access for folks who may have these monitors, who are previously restricted or disqualified from going to space.
And finally, studying normal physiology in the extreme environment gives us better insight on how diabetic and insulin resistance and glucose metabolism works in a one g environment, furthering our insights of diabetic processes and insulin resistance in the terrestrial environment. Growing up, I wanted to be an astronaut, and I was lucky enough to watch doctor Roberta Bondar, Canada's first female astronaut fly to space. And I realized that we can do that. And so I thought, well, to be like her, I just need to follow her trajectory. And so pretty early on in high school, I knew I wanted to be a neuroscientist, a physician, and an astronaut.
And even before that, all of my homework assignments in junior high, all of the books I checked out from the library had to do with space and space exploration and astronomy.
But there was a little bit more to it than that. There was that sense of adventure and exploration and wanting to go into the unknown, and that comes from my parents who packed up everything that they owned in these suitcases in India in the eighties and decided to move to Canada to start a whole new life, moving from the beautiful tropical paradise of Mumbai to minus 35 degrees Celsius in the middle of Manitoba in the dead of winter. And that just really set the tone for we don't know how to do this, but we're gonna figure it out, and that's something that really sticks with me to this day. And they really took it to the next level. They would take us camping in tents when we were as young as 2/3.
That kind of set the stage for being outdoorsy. I was a girl guide, and I went through everything from brownies to girl guides to pathfinders to rangers.
So that meant first learning to camp in tents to eventually, when I was 14, supervising, younger girls as young as 6 on taking them on their 1st camping weekend and just realizing I loved that. I was a part of, outdoor ed in junior high. That meant everything from building and digging out at Quincy and sleeping in it in the rockies in the winter to, building our lean to in the summer. And so, you know, that idea of being resourceful, solving any problem, being a kind of MacGyver, that really stuck with me, and I think that was really foundational in a lot of the arenas and areas where I operate in today.
My identity with myself is an ongoing, exploration because as we grow and as we look at how the our relationships with our roots and our understanding of those narratives, changes, so too does our perception of that. And so for me, it's this ongoing journey to learn more and embrace more with this very Indian background that I grew up with. So I'm definitely Indo Canadian. I go back to background that I grew up with.
So I'm definitely Indo Canadian. I go back to India every 5 years to see my relatives, my extended family in Mumbai.
I've grown up on Indian food. My mom is the best cook in the world, Indian food and otherwise, and that's just facts. You know, she's the best cook, ever. You know, we celebrated Diwali and, typical Indian festivals.
So it's something that you take for granted because that's your normal growing up, and then you kind of realize and say, okay. You know, what parts of this really have been foundational for me? What parts really need to be dissected more?
For example, how we view the role of women in the workplace, how we view the role of women in science and exploration and even within our families.
And that, I think, needs, some dissection and probably some updating as well.
So I think it's possible to have a a nuanced relationship with your culture in that you can embrace and evangelize on the best parts, but you can also speak out, against the parts that may be harmful to identities, specifically as women. When I was in high school when I was in high school, there was this very set path that it was going to be neuroscience doctor astronaut, and everything that I did, you know, was related to that trajectory.
So when I was 13, my dad's a physiotherapist. I got up in the summer. I said, I'm coming to work with you. I will be your physiotherapist's aide for the summer. And, he you know, my dad's game for anything.
He never would have said no. I don't think he had a choice in the matter. And, you know, minimum wage at that time was, you know, like, 5.25 an hour, and so you're working for that.
You're learning everything about the basics of, interacting with patients and building that rapport to starting, you know, bringing the patients back to initiate their treatment to the, bookkeeping side of it and arranging appointments.
And, you know, it was it was kind of the first peek into doing something health care related. And then the other the next job I had, I knew I wanted to be sciency as well and scientific, and so there were these competitive research positions available to high school students. So as a 16 year old, it's actually funny because I got into one of these research fellowships, but I actually didn't get my first choice. And I was devastated about that because, in my mind, in my 16 year old mind, if I didn't get the health care science research position, then it meant that I wasn't on my trajectory to be a doctor.
And that failure was actually really instructive in, having big aspirations and also being resourceful and learning to regroup when things don't go your way.
Because what I had done, in retrospect, probably wasn't the smartest of moves. But the 2 fellowships, the research, fellowships, the health one and the science one, they were the results came out at different times. So I learned about the science one right before the health one, but I really wanted the health one.
So I gave up the science one and then learned I was the 1st runner-up or the health one, which was absolutely devastating because now not only did I have not have my first choice research position, I had none.
And so then as a 16 year old who knew that this was part of the trajectory, this was part of the, route that I wanted to pursue, it meant scrambling and emailing every single professor in the biological sciences department explaining my predicament and just how much I wanted a research position and how good I would be. And one research professor took pity on me, and she brought me into her lab. She was a fantastic mentor.
I worked in the department of zoological sciences, and she ended up being such a great mentor. And it was just really a lesson in betting on someone, betting on a stranger with aspirations, and she actually ended up being one of my references for medical school. So there were so many lessons learned there. It's we're not always gonna succeed, but we can kind of change our we can control our reaction and how resourceful we are when things don't go our way.
So when I was in 4th year medical school, I was lucky enough to be sponsored by the Canadian Space Agency to go down to NASA's Johnson Space Center for a 4 week aerospace medicine elective. And this was a CSA sponsored fellowship and or it was a CSA sponsored rotation, and I had known about this since I was in high school.
And I was just spending those years biding my time, getting the experience to make sure I would be competitive enough by the time it came to apply so I had a chance of being selected. And I really played the long game there with 10 years before I was even eligible to apply.
And sure enough, that, rotation, I was one of 2 Canadians selected to go down to, JSC. And during the CSA briefing, they would say really kind things like, oh, and we'll have the CSA astronauts who are training down their lives with you and, you know, show you the ropes of who are training down their lives with you and, you know, show you the ropes of JSC. And, you know, my internal monologue was thinking, that's really nice of me to say, but they're astronauts. They have better things to do. And so my first day in my office, I'd lost my passport, and I was really frazzled about that. And as soon as I got into my office, the phone rang. And I said, you hang on for a second. I'm looking for my passport.
And then just there was this instant where I processed that the person on the other end of the line said that their name was colonel Chris Hadfield, and I just put him on hold. And, you know, true to their word, Chris Hadfield, David Saint Jacques, and Jeremy Hanson, they were all down there, and they all, at various points in time, took time to liaise with us, answer our questions. You know, it would be as simple as going for coffee, going on a walking tour of GSC, taking a sailing.
And, you know, it was just really that kindness that these folks are so and they operate at such a high level. They're so high functioning, but they're also making that time to spend with us students. And it was just, you know, really a lesson that I keep with me to this day of the importance of paying it forward. Because if folks as busy as David, Jeremy, and Chris can make time to invest in someone that they have never met previously, you know, I think the rest of us have no excuse for not paying it forward. When it comes to the business's space, the biggest misconception is that this is only for rich people and that there are limited opportunities.
And, truly, this is just the beginning of an era of unparalleled access to space via human space flight in novel avenues. It's not just through government versus commercial. It's commercial and its own subsets. And so previously, we've seen folks go as tourists who can afford the ticket. We've seen folks go as employees, companies. We've seen, folks go, by winning a contest.
There have been a number of contests out there. And what we're trying our hand at AAAS is pioneering a new avenue through research because we truly believe that space is the next great research laboratory.
And we've seen that for decades that there have been incredible returns from the International Space Station in terms of biomedical sciences, in terms of what we learn in terms of different physical sciences processes. And I think the more we catalyze that access to space, the more we're gonna give humans and scientists a platform on which to think creatively and explore and make even more discoveries.
Success can mean a lot of things to a lot of people in the context of my trajectory in human space flight. It means going to space on my terms in a way that I would, that resonates with the career that I've carved out for myself.
So specifically making positive impacts in medicine and in space medicine that will both have reverberations for future astronauts for decades and generations to come, and also bringing the returns of the best science that we do in space to address our most challenging problems within terrestrial medicine.
And then the second part of that is going there with a team you believe in, with a team that you know that you would walk through walls for and who would do the same for you. And so to be successful in space, you have to have that work ethic, you have to have that vision, and you have to do so with good people.
The best bit of advice I can give about the business of space is that this is an arena that is rapidly changing.
You blink and suddenly there are 4 new avenues that we never even imagined were possible. And so even if there was historically no role for you or no path for you within space and human spaceflight, I encourage you to create your own trajectory.
So figure out what it is that you wanna do. Work really, really, really hard to get there, and then act like you belong there because you do. Make space for yourself.
The opportunities that I am most excited about are the, opportunities within space life sciences, space health, and space medicine because we are just at that inflection point where we are seeing the value of everything from, pharmaceutical manufacturing in space to protein manufacturing, to the development and application of novel technologies like virtual reality, mixed reality, AI, machine learning, 3D printing for our biggest challenges in space health, which include being able to have a crew treat and diagnose themselves autonomously on long duration missions, especially to the moon, Mars, and beyond. And then bringing those advances back to our most resource limited and remote environments back on Earth. Today, I'm focused on my upcoming double AIS o two research mission, as well as advancing space medicine and bringing those returns back to address our greatest challenges in terrestrial medicine on earth.
I'm Dr. Shawna Pandya, and you have been listening to 'Your Business In Space'.
All the ways to connect with me are in the links in the show notes. To discover more, head to interastra.space
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