Patricia Cowings

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Patricia Cowings

Patricia Suzanne Cowings (* 15. December 1948 in the Bronx , New York City ) is an American aerospace - Psycho physiologist . She is best known for her research into the treatment of space sickness in astronauts in the weightlessness of space .

Life

Cowings initially studied at Stony Brook University in New York and received her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California, Davis . Her interest in space travel was sparked by an engineering course at the Graduate School that looked at the design of a space shuttle . She convinced the course leader that, as a woman and psychologist, she could make an important contribution to the design of the Space Shuttle from the user's point of view. During the course, she described a dozen methods for psychological control of biomedical problems in astronauts.

Cowings became the first African American woman to be trained as a science astronaut in 1976 . She trained as a payload specialist for Spacelab Mission Development (SMD II), a simulation in which primarily life science experiments were to be carried out, but was not used in the simulation.

At the Ames Research Center of NASA, Cowings developed and patented the physiological training system Autogenic-Feedback Training Exercise (AFTE). The system made it possible to learn how to influence up to 20 body functions within six hours in order to reduce the effects of space sickness. This method was also tested in space during the space flights of STS-51-B ( Spacelab  3), STS-51-C and STS-46 (Spacelab-J). She later trained four cosmonauts to control space sickness and low blood pressure after six months on the MIR space station. Their method was adapted for pilots and also used in cancer patients who suffered from the side effects of chemotherapy. She is a Principal Investigator at the NASA Ames Research Center.

Private

Cowings is married and has one son.

Awards and honors

  • NASA Individual Achievement Award (1993)
  • Black Engineer of the Year Award (1997)
  • AMES Honor Award for Technology Development (1999)
  • NASA Space Act Award for Invention (2002)
  • National Women of Color Technology Award (2006)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Tiffany Wayne: American Women of Science Since 1900 . ABC-CLIO, LLC, Santa Barbara 2011, ISBN 978-1-59884-158-9 , pp. 320-321 ( archive.org ).
  2. ↑ a b Patricia S. Cowings, principal investigator. NASA, accessed August 14, 2015 .
  3. ↑ Patricia S. Cowings. (No longer available online.) The Benjamin Banneker Institute for Science and Technology, archived from the original on July 5, 2013 ; accessed on August 14, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.thebannekerinstitute.org
  4. ↑ a b Meet: Patricia Cowings, PhD. (No longer available online.) NASA Quest, archived from the original on Jan. 24, 2015 ; accessed on August 14, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / quest.arc.nasa.gov
  5. ^ Wini Warren: Black Women Scientists in the United States . Indiana University Press, 2000, ISBN 978-0-253-33603-3 , pp. 68 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  6. ^ Betty Kaplan Gubert, Miriam Sawyer, Caroline M. Fannin: Distinguished African Americans in Aviation and Space Science . Greenwood, Santa Barbara 2001, ISBN 978-1-57356-246-1 , pp. 80–83 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  7. ↑ Autogenic-feedback training exercise (AFTE) method and system . United States Patent Number: 5,694,939. December 9, 1997, hdl: 2060/19980032583
  8. ↑ Patricia S. Cowings, William B. Toscano: Autogenic-Feedback Training (AFT) as a Preventive Method for Space Motion Sickness: Background and Experimental Design. (PDF) NASA, August 1993, accessed on August 15, 2015 .
  9. ^ Charles W. Carey: American Scientists . Facts on File, New York City 2005, ISBN 978-0-8160-5499-2 , pp. 75 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
personal data
SURNAME Cowings, Patricia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cowings, Patricia Suzanne (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American space psychophysiologist
DATE OF BIRTH December 15, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City