Carolyn Huntoon

Carolyn Leach Huntoon (born August 25, 1940) is an American scientist and former government official. She was the director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, a position which she held from 1994 to 1996, and was the first woman in the role. She was an assistant secretary at the Department of Energy from 1999 to 2001.

Biography

Early life and education Carolyn Leach was born in Leesville, Louisiana, on August 25, 1940. She had four sisters, Frances, Mixon Lee, Gloria Hope and Martha Ann, and an older brother, Anthony Claude (Buddy) Leach Jr., who served a term in the United States House of Representatives representing Louisiana's 4th congressional district from 1979 to 1981. She was educated at Leesville High School, from which she graduated with the class of 1958.

She entered Northwestern State College in Natchitoches, Louisiana, in September of that year. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in August 1962, and qualified as a medical technologist at Ochsner Foundation Hospital. She attended the University of Texas at Houston for a year in 1963 and 1964, and then Baylor College of Medicine, where she earned her Master of Science (MS) in 1966, and PhD in 1968.

NASA career

She joined NASA in 1970, and as head of the Endocrine Laboratory, which was then part of the Lunar Receiving Laboratory, performed pre- and post-flight testing of astronauts on the Project Apollo missions. During Project Skylab, some of the experiments she had developed as a postdoctoral researcher were performed on the space station. She became the chief of the Biomedical Laboratories Branch in 1977. She was a consultant to the US Navy for the Tektite habitat project in 1969 and 1970, the McGovern Allergy Clinic in Houston from 1972 to 1975, the Department of Physiology at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, from 1974 to 1976, and the American Society of Clinical Pathologists in Chicago from 1974 to 1978. She was also an adjunct professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston from 1975 to 1987. She went on to serve on subsequent astronaut selection panels until 1994, In this role she oversaw the DOE cleanup of the United States nuclear weapons complex at 113 sites in 30 states. She was also responsible for the management of the DOE's field offices at the Idaho National Laboratory, Savannah River, Hanford, Carlsbad, Ohio, (which oversaw the sites at Paducah, Kentucky and Portsmouth, Ohio) and Rocky Flats. After the 2000 United States presidential election President George W. Bush asked her to stay on at the DOE to provide some continuity, which she agreed to do until a suitable replacement was found. She retired in the summer of 2001 and moved to Barrington, Rhode Island. and the Presidential Rank Award of Distinguished Executive in 1994. and in September 2014, Women in Aerospace gave her a lifetime achievement award for "sustained and exemplary leadership at NASA, the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Department of Energy, her exceptional scientific contributions towards understanding the effects of spaceflight on the human body, and her dedication and mentorship of astronauts and aerospace professionals."