Duke Alumna Selected To Be in the 24th NASA Astronaut Class

Four people with one person in the center holding a plaque
At Duke’s recent SPACE launch initiative, Duke President Vincent Price, Anna Menon, physics professors Dan Scolnic and Michael A. Troxel

Anna Menon, who graduated from Duke in 2010 with a master’s degree in biomedical engineering, may be the first woman to touch down on the moon’s rocky, cratered surface.

Menon was selected to be in the 24th NASA astronaut candidate class and will undergo about two years of training before joining the ranks of active astronauts available for future missions, which may include exploration of the moon and Mars. The class of ten candidates was chosen out of a pool of more than 8,000 applicants.

Menon has embarked to space previously, aboard SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission in 2024. Most recently, she was a senior engineer at SpaceX focusing on crew operations for various spacecraft.

Menon, who has won a Distinguished Young Alumna award from Pratt, visited the campus recently to kick off the university’s SPACE Initiative (pictured in photo above).