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Christy
Hansen's talk inaugurates Women's Studies Annual Alumni Lecture Series
By Irene Burgo
Christy Hansen, a former comprehensive science
major who graduated from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in 1997,
delivered the inaugural lecture for the Women’s Studies Annual
 Alumni
Lecture Series on Nov. 4 in CEER 001. Her presentation was titled “Glass
Ceilings and Fight Paths.” The goal of the lecture series is to showcase the
accomplishments of alumni to show particularly what women have done with
their Villanova education. Hansen is a space-flight engineer who works for
NASA at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Dr. Sheryl Bowen, director of Women’s Studies,
introduced Hansen and spoke briefly about the program. While an
undergraduate at Villanova, Hansen earned a minor in Women’s Studies. Her
presentation, illustrated with videos and slides, focused on her job and the
opportunities for employment at NASA. In her talk, she related how the
courses in the Women’s Studies Program helped her to achieve her goals
despite the obstacles she encountered.
As a space-flight engineer, Hansen is responsible
for training astronauts to prepare for space walks on the International
Space Station. These are astronauts who engage in extravehicular activities
(EVA). The EVA group does planning, training and flying. Simply put, Hansen
educates and trains the crew who work outside of the space station to
navigate in the environment of space while they are engaged in whatever
tasks they must perform. Some of her responsibilities entail teaching
courses, working hands-on with the astronauts in a pool that simulates the
weightlessness of outer space, writing procedures for instructions during
space flight, and monitoring at the Mission Control Center during space
flights, the activities the astronauts perform during their time outside the
space station.
Hansen explained how she always had wanted to be
astronaut. “It is something I still want to do, but the job I have now is
the closest thing to pursuing all of my dreams,” she said. She described
the struggles she needed to overcome in order “to conquer the barriers and
the fears that could have gotten me to doubt my dreams and could have
prevented me from getting to where I am.” While citing examples of
discouraging, negative comments she encountered along the way, she praised
the Women’s Studies Program and its faculty members for supporting her and
strengthening her resolve while she was a student. “Women’s Studies was a
group I could go to, to express my struggles and be taken seriously.”
After graduating from Villanova, Hansen earned a
master’s degree in space studies from the University of North Dakota. She
was lucky enough to be interviewed by NASA after making a contact there
during a visit to the Houston Space Center on a field trip as a graduate
student. “Keep your dreams open and follow what you want to do,” she told
the audience.
In late
November, Hansen presented her work on extra-vehicular activity at the
Mission Control Center in Moscow as a participant in the Russian Power
Reconfiguration meeting involving flight controllers from NASA. |
