It was my honour this year to have had my work recognised at the AsMA 94th Annual Scientific Meeting (Chicago, May 2024) through being included as one of 5 women highlighted for their leadership role in the field of aerospace medicine by the Mary F. Foley Endowment Panel. My thanks to the selection committee involved and especially to my friend and colleague Marian B. Sides and Annie Sobel, who presented my work. Also, huge congratulations to the other pioneering women highlighted - Nicole Stott, Peggy Whitson, Ilaria Cinelli, and Barbara M. Barrett.   

I confess that I was unaware of the woman after whom the panel was named and felt compelled to learn a little about Mary Frances Foley, affectionately known by her family and peers as ‘Bunny’.  
Mary completed her BS and Registered Nurse qualification at the Xavier College, Chicago in 1950, continuing to study surgical nurse training at the Mayo Clinic/St Mary’s Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota till 1952. The seed of her passion for aerospace medicine was probably planted in 1955 when she spent three months travelling around Asia, Africa and Europe to discover more about air transport procedures for patients. She joined the US Air Force in 1958 as a flight nurse on active duty, before focusing on research from 1960 onwards at the Aviation Medicine Research Laboratory, Ohio State University.  She completed many ground-breaking researches on the pulmonary effects of oxygen/air mixtures on professional pilot performance, and altitude and zero-gravity effects on pulmonary function, as well as hypoxia and human factors studies. She even took part in parabolic flight and human centrifuge studies focused on G-force limits for pilots. We can see that Mary F. Foley really was a pioneering woman of science from her era and I’m sure she was admired and seen as an excellent role model by many of the young women who came to know her.

Having good female scientific role models I believe is crucial, as they help to challenge stereotypes and show that science is a field for everyone, regardless of gender. I certainly grew up with great admiration for the likes of one of my personal heroines, physicist and chemist Marie Curie (1867-1934), who became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first person to win a Nobel Prize twice and in two different fields (Physics 1903, Chemistry 1911). I even braved a cold winter's February (2008) in Warsaw, Poland to visit her birthplace, which is now home to the Maria Skłodowska-Curie Museum at 16 Freta Street - well worth a visit should you find yourself in Warsaw.

Another living role model for me, Dr Joan Vernikos, is someone I first met at an international space conference when I was still completing my MSc in Aerospace Medicine in Ohio USA. At that time Joan was the Director of Life Sciences at NASA, inspiring me with tales of her space research and generally encouraging me to pursue my dream of a career in human space exploration. Our paths have crossed many times over the years, and together with her husband Geoffrey (sadly, no longer with us but always remembered as an absolute gentleman and wonderful teller of stories), we spent many a happy hour over a drink or two in various parts of the world, updating on our latest research. We also collaborated on a book about gravity and its effects on health (A Gravidade, Esta Grande Escultora), in Portuguese, which can be downloaded freely from the InnovaSpace website (Link).  

Once again, my thanks to the Mary F Foley Endowment Panel for their acknowledgement of my work, and I can only hope that I have provided positive encouragement and served as a role model in some way for a few members of the new generations of space-inspired professionals, for whom an exciting period of Moon and Mars human exploration awaits.
​If you have 8m 29s to spare and would like to listen to the tribute given by Annie Sobel, do click the below audio link, courtesy of the Aerospace Nursing & Allied Health Professionals Society (ANAHPS).

​I became involved in Space research whilst my husband was completing his PhD in the early 90s, acting as ‘flight nurse’ for several parabolic flight human research studies. I went on to co-develop the Evetts/Russomano (ER) technique for basic life support in space, while continuing to work as a renal specialist nurse in the UK.

​In 2011, I became the sole flight nurse for the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany. I enjoyed two successful years working closely with the flight surgeons within the Operational Space Medicine Unit (OSMU), as it was called then. I was part of a team responsible for the day-to-day management and administration necessary for maintaining ESA (European Space Agency) Astronaut health. One of my key responsibilities was to track and retrieve data from medical events related to ‘pre’, ‘in’ and ‘post’ space flight activities.  
 
The role also involved working as the interface between OSMU, NASA, the ESA flight clinic and occasionally the Russian Space Agency, coordinating somewhat complex planning to ensure all flight medical examinations were completed within a rigid timescale from an Astronaut’s initial mission assignment, 18 months before they flew, to two years post-mission. The examinations took place at the locations of all 3 agencies to accommodate an Astronauts packed international training schedule. Astronauts who weren’t assigned to a mission, also required coordination of annual medicals locally.

​I particularly enjoyed good relationships with the NASA flight nurses who I had the pleasure to meet when visiting the Johnson Space Center in Houston. It was a great opportunity to meet all those I had been communicating with by phone and email, to cement our good working relationships.
 
I represented OSMU at weekly events such as the astronaut training coordination meetings, where planning and updates on training schedules and upcoming flight assignments would be discussed. Each team involved in preparing an Astronaut for flight was granted a certain number of hours of the astronaut’s time from a packed pre-mission schedule, to complete the necessary training and preparatory requirements. Arduous negotiations were required with other departments and the agency central mission organisation authority, should a team think they needed extra time to complete their activities.
 
As the Flight Nurse I was responsible to lead weekly clinical meetings to update the flight surgeons on any new information and issues relating to an astronaut’s health and the work underpinning their welfare.