Hello there! I’m Stephanie Johnston. If you’re curious about my background and the career path I took to become a NASA spacesuit engineer, this is my story. Or rather, my career timeline.
Disclaimer: While it can be educating and even inspiring to learn about someone’s career and their journey, don’t be afraid to follow your own path. There are so many amazing careers out there. Opportunities are constantly changing. What worked for me might not work for you. The important thing to remember is that you deserve to build a life that makes you happy, that excites you, that you love… your career is just one aspect of that.
Disclaimer #2: The intent of this page is simply to give you a glimpse into my history, which means I’m showing you mostly accomplishments. Highlighting my background like this doesn’t show you all my struggles or what I’ve sacrificed to get where I am today. I debated on whether I should even post this for fear that it’ll sound braggy or that it’ll give you the impression that my path was easy. But, I convinced myself to post it anyway in hope that it’ll do more good than not!
Related posts: My advice to new engineers and why I chose to study aerospace engineering.
Before College
I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and was the type of kid who wanted to explore and understand the world. As a kid, I was naturally curious and enjoyed building things – from theater sets to woodworking to clay sculpture. I loved stargazing and was super thrilled when I won a scholarship to attend Space Camp in high school (#nerdsarecool). That’s where I first learned about aerospace engineering. In high school, I spent most of my free time being a theater techie, playing tennis, and building balsa wood planes and bottle rockets for Science Olympiad competitions.
2007-2012: College (Undergrad)
It took me five years to graduate with my B.S. in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering at Purdue University in Indiana. I spent almost half of that time interning or taking summer classes elsewhere. Since I moved around quite a bit, I added a quick chart that breaks down where I was for each school semester before jumping into more details in the subsections below. Each subsection is broken out by school year: fall, spring, and summer.
| School Year | Fall | Spring | Summer |
| 2007-2008 | Purdue | Purdue | JPL Intern |
| 2008-2009 | Purdue | JSC Co-op/Intern | Community College |
| 2009-2010 | JSC Co-op/Intern | Purdue | JSC Co-op/Intern |
| 2010-2011 | Purdue | JSC Co-op/Intern | Study Abroad (Germany) |
| 2011-2012 | Purdue | Purdue | Fulltime JSC Employee! |
2007-2008: First Year
I joined Purdue’s EPICS engineering design program and lived with fellow engineering/EPICS women in Earhart Hall for my first year at Purdue. Living in an engineering-focused dorm my first year helped me find engineering friends and study groups quickly, despite my introvert tendencies.
I joined several clubs, such as Purdue’s chapter of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and the AIAA’s Design/Build/Fly (DBF) team. Clubs like SWE helped me to connect with more engineering students and events, whereas DBF gave me a glimpse into real aerospace design.
Between EPICS and DBF, I was able to get hands-on engineering experience in the very beginning. I truly believe that helped set me up for success for the rest of my engineering journey (getting hands-on experience is my #1 tip to every engineering student).
In the spring, I applied to NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) co-op program (now called the NASA Pathways Internship Program). I knew this program was the key to getting my foot in the door at NASA. Although I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do at NASA, I was interested in contributing to human space exploration. I anxiously waited for months for a call back from JSC (it was incredibly hard not to get discouraged).
But, instead of simply waiting for a callback, I applied for a summer internship at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. Fortunately, JPL didn’t keep me waiting for months. So, that summer as a new JPL intern, I analyzed data for the descent radar on the Mars Science Laboratory rover (now known as Curiosity). Overall, it was an incredible summer where I learned a lot about rovers and unmanned space missions.
2008-2009: Second Year
A couple of months into my second year at Purdue, I finally got a call back from JSC. It only took nine months (yes, that’s sarcasm). But I was accepted! All that waiting… and annoyingly calling them about once a month asking for a status and giving them resume updates… had finally come to an end.
Meanwhile, during that fall term at Purdue, I continued working on the DBF team. I also signed up for a SWE mentoring program where I was paired up with a senior in aerospace engineering. By chance, my SWE mentor accepted a full-time position working at JSC. She was heading to Houston at the same time I was! We continued to meet up in Houston and our mentoring relationship has turned into a lifelong friendship. Side note: I highly recommend signing up for mentorship programs! Not all mentorships turn into friendships, but I always learn something new.
In the Spring of 2009, I started out my first JSC co-op “tour” on a spacesuit engineering team. I instantly fell in love with spacesuit design and Extravehicular Activity (EVA, or “spacewalking”). Spacesuits are basically independent spacecraft designed around the human body… I mean, how cool is that?!
In the summer of 2009, I was in between co-op tours and wanted to get ahead on some classes. I decided to stay at home with my parents for the summer and took two summer classes at a local community college. Overall, It was a great opportunity to save money and see my family and friends.
2009-2010: Third Year
I returned to JSC in the fall of 2009, where I joined the EVA operations team responsible for training astronauts to perform spacewalks and are also EVA flight controllers in the Mission Control Center. I followed the STS-129 astronauts through the last part of their EVA training and sat as an OJT (on-the-job trainee) flight controller while they were performing their real EVAs outside the International Space Station.
I came back to Purdue in the spring of 2010, and I volunteered to be the secretary for Purdue’s student chapter of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). That semester, our chapter hosted the 2010 Region III Student Conferences. It was a 3-day event where Purdue welcomed over 80 participants and special guests from across the region. I learned that event planning is something I’m decent at, but definitely not something I enjoy!
I spent the summer of 2010 at JSC working with a pyrotechnics engineering team. I wanted to try something completely outside of the EVA while I still had the chance as a student. It was a blast (pun totally intended). I’m glad I took the opportunity to explore a completely different field at JSC. But, I was still excited to get back to EVA for my final rotation the following year. I should also mention that each time I was at JSC, I also participated in or led various NASA student committees.
2010-2011: Fourth Year
In the fall of 2010, I was back at Purdue for a semester. On top of my AAE classes, I became the vice president for our AIAA chapter. I was also nominated and “tapped” into the Mortar Board National Seniors Honors Society.
For my final JSC rotation in the Spring of 2011, I returned to the same engineering group that I started with, but instead of spacesuits, I worked on the crew survival suits. These are the suits that keep an astronaut safe during earth launch and reentry in vehicles like the Space Shuttle or Orion. Learn more about the Orion version of these crew survival suits here.
In the summer of 2011, I decided to do something a little different. I had always wanted to travel internationally but had never actually traveled outside the states before. So, I took the opportunity to complete my last humanity electives while studying abroad in Stuttgart, Germany.
2011-2012: Fifth (and Final!) Year
Since I stayed at Purdue for the full school year, I applied to be a Resident Assistant (RA) to help pay for my room and board (also a good tip to minimize college debt). After a very interesting and interactive (and intense) interview process, I was selected to be an RA for approximately 50 freshman engineering ladies.
I also joined a team to compete for NASA’s reduced gravity flight program by designing an experiment. It was definitely a lot of hard work, but it was worth it when we got to fly with our experiment in a reduced gravity airplane (aka the vomit comet).
I received my Bachelor in Science in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering in May and began working at JSC full-time in July as an EVA flight controller and astronaut instructor (the same group I worked with as a co-op in the Fall of 2009).
2012-2015: Full-time NASA Spacesuit Engineer In EVA Operations
In the summer of 2012, I started full-time as an EVA astronaut instructor and flight controller. This was probably the coolest and fastest-paced job I’ll ever have, but I had a lot of learning ahead of me! I needed to understand how to spacewalk (without actually going into space) and I needed to be knowledgeable on all the various tools and ISS hardware that astronauts could interface with during an EVA. I also had to learn how to be an effective instructor in various environments (from the classroom to mockups to simulated space environments). But the hardest part? For me, that was learning all the soft skills necessary to be a great instructor and flight controller. Good communication and confidence were two skills that I had to the work the hardest on.
The first time I suited up and performed a simulated spacewalk in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab, it was filmed by Jonathan Bird’s Blue World. I didn’t actually know a film crew was going to follow me around until I showed up that day. Luckily, I didn’t have to do any talking… video cameras make me nervous! You can see it for yourself in this short YouTube video (PS – they call me an astronaut at some point… you can ignore that, I’m just training like one for the day).
If you want to learn about what else it takes to train an astronaut, I recommend scrolling through Peggy Whitson’s “It Takes a NASA Village… To Train an Astronaut” Tumblr feed. You’ll also see me cameo on her EVA tools training page.
2015-2018: EVA Engineering – Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) Subsystem Manager
In 2015, I moved over to JSC’s engineering directorate as an EMU Subsystem Manager (SSM). The EMU is the spacesuit US astronauts (and international partner astronauts) use to perform EVAs on the International Space Station. In this role, I managed the Quest airlock hardware, which delivers consumables (water, oxygen, power) to the EMU’s portable life support system and other vital EVA functions.
The Quest airlock was installed on the ISS in 2001. So, by the time I joined the EMU SSM team, several airlock components were getting a bit old and needed to be upgraded. It was an exciting few years of building and certifying new hardware, delivering it for launch, and watching as astronauts installed and used that new hardware in the airlock for the first time.
During maintenance operations and during EVAs, I sat in the engineering backroom in the mission control center. We were there to answer all the nitty-gritty technical questions that came up about our hardware. It was a very interesting experience because I was now indirectly supporting the EVA operations team that I had just left. The skills I picked up and the relationships I built working in EVA operations definitely helped me out in this new EVA engineering position.
2018- 2022: EVA Engineering – SE&I Spacesuit Engineer
In 2018, my partner’s career moved him to Kentucky. Fortunately, my management agreed to let me work from Kentucky if I moved into a new position supporting an System Engineering and Integration team. So, in August 2018, I moved across the country while I started my new role as the architecture lead for a new lunar spacesuit called the Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU). It’s been a massive project that’s involved hundreds of engineers, technicians, quality assurance, scientists, human factors experts, etc. In 2020, my role expanded to include leading the EVA engineering team that integrates directly with the new lunar lander vehicle teams.
You can find out the latest information about our Artemis generation suits via #SuitUp with NASA.
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