Ginger Kerrick

Ginger Kerrick is an American physicist at NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. She is the first Hispanic female to be flight director at NASA.

Education Kerrick graduated second in her class from Hanks High School in El Paso, Texas, and was named El Paso Female Athlete of the Year. She started her college degree at the University of Texas at El Paso, where she walked onto their women's basketball team. Her 1993 master's thesis was entitled Infrared deep level transient spectroscopy.

Career

Kerrick was a summer intern at NASA in 1991, which led to first a co-op position and then full-time employment as a materials research engineer with NASA in May, 1994. Kerrick interviewed for the astronaut program, but was disqualified for kidney stones. She became the first non-astronaut Capsule Communicator (Capcom), She served as flight director with NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center from 2005 to 2012. thumb Ginger Kerrick at NASA There, she created plans for scenarios of astronauts in space which assisted ISS and shuttle operations, making her a dual-certified flight director.