Jennifer Anne MacKinnon "Jenni" Sidey-Gibbons (born August 3, 1988) is a Canadian astronaut, engineer, and academic. She was selected by the

Canadian Space Agency The Canadian Space Agency (CSA; french: Agence spatiale canadienne, ASC) is the national space agency of Canada, established in 1990 by the ''Canadian Space Agency Act''. The president is Lisa Campbell, who took the position on September 3, 2020 ...

(CSA) as one of the two members of the 2017 CSA Group alongside

Joshua Kutryk Joshua Kutryk (born March 21, 1982) is a Canadian Astronaut Corps, Canadian astronaut, engineer, and pilot. He was selected by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) one of the two members of the 2017 CSA Group alongside Jenni Sidey. Early life and educ ...

Early life and education

Sidey was born on August 3, 1988, in

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...

, Alberta. Sidey graduated from McGill University with a Bachelor of Engineering with honours degree in mechanical engineering. While she was at McGill, she carried out research in collaboration with the

(CSA) and the National Research Council Flight Research Laboratory on flame propagation in microgravity. She subsequently went on to complete a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

in engineering at Jesus College, Cambridge in 2015, where she focused on combustion under the supervision of Professor Nondas Mastorakos.

Academic career

Prior to joining the

(CSA), Sidey was a

lecturer Lecturer is an List of academic ranks, academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. T ...

in internal combustion engines at the Department of Engineering of the University of Cambridge. The focus of her research was turbulent flame physics and pollutant reduction in combustion systems. She also taught undergraduate and graduate students in the Energy, Fluid Mechanics and Turbomachinery Division on topics ranging from conventional and alternative energy production to introductory thermodynamics and flame physics. In 2016, she was awarded the Institution of Engineering and Technology's

Young Woman Engineer of the Year Award The Young Woman Engineer of the Year Awards are presented at the Institution of Engineering and Technology, London, England. Part of the IET Achievement Medals collection, the award was launched in 1978, and was originally known as the Girl Techni ...

, as well as a

Royal Academy of Engineering The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) is the United Kingdom's national academy of engineering. The Academy was founded in June 1976 as the Fellowship of Engineering with support from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who became the first senior ...

Young Engineer of the Year Award.

CSA career

Sidey was selected by the

(CSA) to undergo training as an astronaut as part of the 2017 CSA Group, the fourth Canadian astronaut recruitment campaign. Sidey and

were selected among a large field of qualified candidates. Sidey was the third female candidate chosen by the Canadian Space Agency after

Roberta Bondar Roberta Lynn Bondar (; born December 4, 1945) is a Canadian astronaut, neurologist and consultant. She is Canada's first female astronaut and the first neurologist in space. After more than a decade as head of an international space medicine r ...

and Julie Payette, and when selected at age 28, was the youngest astronaut candidate ever selected by the Canadian Space Agency. In July 2017, Sidey relocated to Houston, Texas, to complete the two-year NASA Astronaut Candidate Training Program at the

Johnson Space Center The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is NASA's center for human spaceflight (originally named the Manned Spacecraft Center), where human spaceflight training, research, and flight control are conducted. It was renamed in honor of the late U ...

. She is training alongside the 2017 NASA astronaut class.

References

External links

CSA profile
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CSA Video GalleryCSA Photo Gallery
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sidey, Jennifer 1988 births Living people Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge Canadian astronauts Canadian women engineers Fellows of St Catharine's College, Cambridge McGill University Faculty of Engineering alumni People from Calgary Women astronauts 21st-century Canadian engineers