CADY COLEMAN

Dr. Cady Coleman is an astronaut, scientist, wife, mother, pilot, and musician. During her 24-year career at NASA, she spent more than 180 days in space, including two space shuttle missions and a six-month expedition living and working on the International Space Station (ISS), where she served as the Lead Robotics and Lead Science officer.

Cady’s NASA training also included a three-month meteorite hunting expedition in Antarctica and a two-week stay in an underwater habitat off the coast of Florida. Before being chosen as an astronaut, she began her service in the US Air Force as a research chemist, retiring as a Colonel.

A popular and in-demand speaker, Cady draws from her time at NASA to talk about a wide range of topics including innovative leadership, building inclusive teams, and why “mission” matters if you want to achieve ambitious goals. She is also a highly regarded media adviser and on-air expert, known for her STEM/STEAM and diversity advocacy. She is a regular ABC contributor and co-anchors their Special Reports on space, including the early SpaceX launches to the space station and the Perseverance Mars Rover landing. From the Space Station, she advised Sandra Bullock for her appearance in Gravity and later coached Halle Berry for her role in the TV series Extant, serving as a technical consultant to the writers of that series.

An amateur flute player, Cady performed the first-ever space duet from the Space Station – with Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull. For more than a decade, she performed and spoke about space several times a year with the acclaimed Irish band, the Chieftains. She also performs nationally and internationally as a member of Bandella, a band of astronauts who have been performing together since 1992.

Currently the Global Explorer in Residence at Arizona State University (ASU), Cady co-hosts Mission: Interplanetary, a podcast known for its focus on the big questions that face humans as we become an interplanetary species. She is an advisor and zero-gravity coach for Mission: AstroAccess, a non-profit working to advance disability in space. She also serves as a Research Affiliate at the MIT Media Lab, where she consults on space-related work, and is a board member at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.