Janet L. Kavandi
NASA Astronaut —

DR. JANET KAVANDI is a three flight veteran who has logged over 33 days in space, traveling over 13.1 million miles in 535 Earth orbits.

Born in Springfield, she graduated as Valedictorian from Carthage Senior High School with a Presidential Scholarship in 1977. She went on to graduate Magma Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemistry from Missouri Southern State College and earned a Master of Science Degree in Chemistry from the University of Missouri - Rolla and a Doctorate in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Washington - Seattle. Her doctoral dissertation resulted in two patents.

Following graduation, Dr. Kavandi accepted a position at Eagle-Picher Industries in Joplin, and at Boeing Aerospace Company in Seattle, Washington. where she was involved with the Short Range Attack Missile II, Sea Lance and the Lightweight Exo-Atmospheric Projectile. as well as supporting several other programs.

At NASA Dr. Kavandi was selected to supported payload integration for the International Space Station and served as a mission specialist on STS-91, the 9th and final Shuttle-Mir docking mission. She also worked as a spacecraft communicator in NASA’s Mission Control Center. On her second mission, she served aboard STS-99, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, which mapped more than 47 million miles of the Earth’s land surface to provide data for a highly accurate three-dimensional topographical map.

Dr. Kavandi subsequently worked in the Robotics Branch, where she trained on both the shuttle and space station robotic manipulator systems. On her most recent mission, she served aboard STS-104/ISS Assembly Flight 7A on the 10th mission to the International Space Station. The shuttle crew installed the joint airlock “Quest” and conducted joint operations with the Expedition-2 crew.

Following her last mission, Dr. Kavandi again served as lead for the Payloads and Habitability Branch, then as the Branch Chief for the International Space Station (ISS). In 2005, Dr. Kavandi accepted a position as Deputy Chief of the Astronaut Office, where she currently serves.