r. Mamta Patel Nagaraja currently works at NASA, managing the Agency-wide Women@NASA program, training astronauts, and working as a flight controller in the Mission Control Center. As part of her efforts, Dr. Nagaraja founded the NASA GIRLS and BOYS programs, which are virtual mentoring opportunities for middle school students. Dr. Nagaraja has also trained astronauts who flew aboard the U.S. Space Shuttle and fly aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Further, she has worked numerous spaceflight missions, supporting the astronauts from Mission Control for the communications system of the ISS. In her career, she has been awarded two of the Agencys highest recognitions, the NASA JSC Center Directors Award for mentoring and NASA's Exceptional Service Medal for significant contributions to the ISS program. Additionally, Dr. Nagaraja received one of the 120 interview slots for the 2013 astronaut candidate selection from an initial pool of over 6,000 applications.Dr. Nagaraja holds a bachelor of science in aerospace engineering from Texas A&M University, a master of science in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a doctor of philosophy in biomedical engineering from Georgia Tech and Emory University. She has previously published several scientific articles and a novel based on her doctoral dissertation called Your Bones Under the Microscope.