Lauren Edgar (MS ’09, PhD ’13) has been selected by NASA as one of 10 new astronaut candidates, chosen from more than 8,000 applicants nationwide. Edgar and her fellow candidates will complete nearly two years of training before becoming eligible for missions to low Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars.
Edgar earned her master’s and doctorate in geology at Caltech, where she worked in the lab of John Grotzinger, the Harold Brown Professor of Geology. Through the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences’ close ties to JPL, she contributed to both the Mars Exploration Rover and Mars Science Laboratory missions while still a graduate student. Her fieldwork took her to Antarctica, Iceland, Hawai’i, and the American Southwest — environments she describes as analogous to the conditions of working on a small team aboard a spacecraft.
Before her selection, Edgar was a research geologist at the US Geological Survey’s Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona, where she led the TARGET field-training program for NASA engineers, project managers, and astronauts. She also served as deputy principal investigator on the Artemis III Geology Team, helping define the scientific goals and geological activities for the first landed mission of the Artemis program.
Edgar is the latest in a line of geologist-astronauts with Caltech connections. Harrison Schmitt (BS ’57) walked on the Moon during Apollo 17 in 1972 — the only professional scientist to do so. Jessica Watkins, a former postdoctoral scholar in GPS who also worked with Grotzinger on the Curiosity rover, became the first Black woman to serve on a long-duration ISS mission in 2022. Edgar herself trained Watkins’ astronaut class in geological observation techniques.
In a Q&A with Caltech, Edgar reflected on the through line from Pasadena to Houston: “I feel like I owe Caltech a lot in terms of preparing me well for this role. In addition, I made a lot of really close friendships during my time there and connected with the people that I’ve worked with throughout my career.”