Jessica Watkins

Jessica Andrea Watkins (born May 14, 1988) is an American NASA astronaut, geologist, aquanaut, and former international rugby player. Watkins was announced as the first Black woman to serve on the International Space Station for a long-term mission in April 2022. On June 9, 2022, at 7:38 UTC, she became the Black woman with the most time in space, surpassing Stephanie Wilson's 43 days.

Early life and education Jessica "Watty" Watkins was born on May 14, 1988, in Gaithersburg, Maryland, to Michael and Carolyn Watkins. Her family moved to Lafayette, Colorado, where she graduated from Fairview High School in 2006. She earned a bachelor's degree in geological and environmental sciences at Stanford University where she was a member of the rugby team. Prior to her selection as an astronaut candidate, Watkins was a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology, where she was also an assistant coach to the women's basketball team.

Rugby career Watkins began playing rugby during her freshman year at Stanford and remained on the team for four years. In 2008, during her sophomore year, she was a member of the Division I national champion team.

NASA career

As an undergraduate, Watkins worked at the Ames Research Center to support the Mars Phoenix lander and prototype Mars drill testing. In 2009, she was chief geologist for the NASA Spaceward Bound Crew 86 at the Mars Desert Research Station. As a graduate student, she worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the NEOWISE project to survey near-Earth asteroids. Watkins also worked on planning for the Mars rover Curiosity. She also contributed to the design of the prospective Uranus orbiter OCEANUS in 2016.

In June 2017, Watkins was selected as a member of NASA Astronaut Group 22 and began her two-year training in August. In December 2020, she was selected to be a part of the Artemis Team to return humans to the Moon. At the time, 2025 was the target date for the crewed lunar landing mission; since then, there has been schedule creep to no earlier than 2027. In November 2021, she became the 4th astronaut of Group 22, and first Black woman, to be assigned a long-duration mission to the International Space Station (ISS) after being chosen as the final member of SpaceX Crew-4, which launched in April 2022.

It was Watkins’ first time in space. She served as a mission specialist for the six-month mission.

On April 23, 2026, NASA announced that Watkins was assigned to fly on SpaceX Crew-13 mission in September 2026 to become part of the ISS Expedition 75/76 crew. She is the commander of the Crew-13 mission. It will be her second mission to the station as well as becoming NASA's first astronaut to ride on a Crew Dragon twice.

NEEMO 23 Watkins participated in NEEMO mission 23 from June 10 to 22, 2019. This mission tested technologies and objectives for deep space mission and lunar explorations on the seafloor. Watkins’ NEEMO mission was the first of its kind to feature an all-female research team led by Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti.

Personal life Watkins' parents live in Lafayette, Colorado. She has one sister. Stanford Earth Early- to Mid- Career Alumni Award, 2018 Caltech Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences Chair's Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2015 Chancellor's Prize, UCLA, 2010 California Space Grant Consortium Fellowship, 2010 Division I College Rugby National Champion, Stanford Women's Rugby, 2008 USA Rugby Collegiate All-American, 2008-2010 Women's Sevens Rugby World Cup Semi-finalist, USA Eagles, 2009