Emma Hwang

Emma Y. Hwang (born Yu-liang Hwang on July 21, 1970) is a Taiwanese-American researcher with Wyle Laboratories. She served as an aquanaut on the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations 5 (NEEMO 5) crew in June 2003.

Early life and education Yu-liang Hwang was born in southern Taiwan. After joining her family on the West Coast of the United States at the age of two, she was dubbed Emma. Most of her early education occurred in central and southeast Texas, and she graduated from Ball High School in Galveston. Growing up along the Texas Gulf Coast initiated her interest in the space program (though she was born a year and a day late for the first Apollo Moon landing). During her junior year, she took a year-and-a-half cooperative study opportunity with Lockheed Missiles and Space Company in Houston, Texas. While in Boston, Hwang first became interested in scuba diving, stemming from her fascination with Jacques Cousteau's work. However, she did not pursue training at that time due to lack of resources and the mostly cold environment in Boston.