Dr. Kate Rubins is a former NASA astronaut, scientist, Professor of Computational and Systems Biology, and Founding Director of the Trivedi Institute for Space and Global Biomedicine, who became the first person to sequence DNA in space. She holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and previously led a research laboratory at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research focused on genomics and viral diseases. Selected as a NASA astronaut in 2009, she has led the development of spaceflight hardware and techniques for studying molecular and cellular biology in microgravity and contributed to the design and testing of NASA’s next-generation lunar spacesuits. She has completed two long-duration missions, four spacewalks, and spent 300 days aboard the International Space Station. Her current work bridges space exploration and global health, with a focus on genomics, synthetic biology, and biomedical innovation.