Join fellow Metro NY alumni and guests for our annual gathering at Sardi’s legendary Broadway Bar and Restaurant, 234 West 44th Street, in the Fourth Floor Eugenia Room. We will be honoring fellow Tar Heel and upcoming NASA Astronaut Zena Cardman ‘10.
Zena Cardman ’10 was born in Urbana, Illinois and then grew up in Williamsburg, Virginia. At Carolina, she earned a B.S in Biology with minors in Creative Writing and Marine Sciences, and a Masters of Science in Marine Biology. As an undergraduate and graduate student, Zena participated in microbial research in hydrothermal vents, the Arctic and the Gulf of Mexico. She also participated in the Palmer Long-Term Ecological Research Network in Antarctica and the Pavilion Lake Research Project in British Columbia (sailing with the Sea Education Association as Assistant Engineer aboard a 135’ tall ship). She was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at Penn State University when she was selected as an astronaut candidate in 2017. Zena then became a member of NASA Astronaut Group 22 to begin her two-year training at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
She has received numerous academic awards, including UNC Chancellor’s Carolina Scholarship (2006-10), recognition as a UNC Birch Fellow (2008), North Carolina Space Grant Fellowships (2008-10, 2013-14), the Irene F. Lee Chancellor’s Award for Most Outstanding Senior Woman (2010), the Royster Society Distinguished Graduate Fellowship (2012-14) and a NASA Ames Honor Award for her work in the Pavilion Lake Research Project (2014). She will soon be assigned technical duties in the Astronaut Office while she awaits a flight assignment.