Nagin Cox

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Nagin Cox
Cox in 2018
Born1965
Bangalore
Alma materCornell University
Scientific career
InstitutionsJet Propulsion Laboratory
North American Aerospace Defense Command

Zainab Nagin Cox (born 1965) is a spacecraft operations engineer at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Asteroid 14061 was named "Nagincox" after her in 2015. She has received the NASA Exceptional Service Medal.

Early life and education[edit]

Cox was born in Bangalore.[1] She grew up in Kuala Lumpur and Kansas City, Kansas.[1] She went to school at Shawnee Mission East High School.[2] At school she was interested in Star Trek and Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey.[3] She studied engineering and psychology at Cornell University, graduating in 1986.[4] She earned a master's degree in space operations systems engineering from Air Force Institute of Technology in 1990.[5]

Career[edit]

Cox in 2018, wearing her mission lanyards collected from more than two decades at JPL.

After graduating, Cox worked for the United States Air Force as a space operations officer. She worked in F-16 aircrew training.[6] She worked as an orbital analyst at North American Aerospace Defense Command.[5] Cox has worked as a spacecraft operations engineer at Jet Propulsion Laboratory since 1993.[5] She has been involved with several interplanetary robotic missions, including Galileo, InSight, Kepler, and Mars Curiosity.[7] She is a tactical mission lead, in charge of the uplink, downlink and advance planning teams.[8] Asteroid 14061 Nagincox, discovered in 1996, was named after her in 2015.[9] She won the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, the Bruce Murray award in 2014 and has won the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal twice.[10][11][12]

Public engagement and diversity[edit]

Cox is passionate about increasing diversity within sciences, engineering and NASA.[13][14][15][16][17] She served on the board of directors at Griffith Observatory.[18] She serves on the President's Council for Cornell Women Alumni.[19] She is an invited speaker for the United States Department of State, travelling the world talking about her career and NASA's robotic space exploration program.[20] In 2014 she visited Pakistan, Rio de Janeiro and Bahia, inspiring young women from unprivileged communities to study sciences and engineering.[21] She was a keynote speaker at SIGGRAPH 2016.[22][23] She visited Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2016, touring the country with the United States Department of State.[24][25] She gave a TEDx talk at Beacon Street in 2017, which was later chosen by Wired as one of the best science talks.[26][27] "What time is it on Mars?" has been viewed almost two million times.[28] She visited Kuwait in 2018, discussing their 2021 Mars mission.[29][30]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Cox, Nagin. "Nagin Cox | Speaker | TED". Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  2. ^ "Z. Nagin Cox's Martian Profile". mars.nasa.gov. Archived from the original on 27 March 2015. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  3. ^ "Meet SIGGRAPH 2016 Keynote Speaker: Z. Nagin Cox - ACM SIGGRAPH Blog". ACM SIGGRAPH Blog. 13 July 2016. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  4. ^ "Nagin Cox's Martian Profile". mars.nasa.gov. Archived from the original on 28 March 2015. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  5. ^ a b c "Office of Alumni Affairs / Ms. Zainab "Nagin" Cox". www.afit.edu. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  6. ^ "Mission System Engineer" (PDF). Casablanca American School. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  7. ^ "Nagin Cox | Cassidy & Fishman Inc". Cassidy & Fishman Inc. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  8. ^ TEDxBeaconStreet (4 January 2017). "The Martians Are Here!". Ideas In Action. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  9. ^ Chamberlin, Alan. "JPL Small-Body Database Browser". ssd.jpl.nasa.gov. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  10. ^ "Nagin Cox". Nagin Cox. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  11. ^ "Judges - Directing Change". Directing Change. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  12. ^ "JPL: Universe" (PDF). JPL. 2014. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  13. ^ "Nagin Cox: "Dare to do mighty things"". IT Girls. 13 June 2016. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  14. ^ "Nagin Cox, Engineer, NASA's Galileo Mission to Jupiter". Challenger Center. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  15. ^ "NASA Engineer Nagin Cox Helps Build Robots That Explore Mars". Rewire. 11 July 2017. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  16. ^ l'espace, Cité de. "Odysseus : des élèves rencontrent Nagin Cox de la NASA - Cité de l'Espace". Cité de l'Espace (in French). Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  17. ^ "NASA scientist Nagin Cox to speak at GUST event". Arab Times. 4 March 2018. Retrieved 19 June 2018 – via PressReader.
  18. ^ "JPL: Universe" (PDF). www.jpl.nasa.gov. 2011. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  19. ^ "President's Council of Cornell Women" (PDF). Cornell. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  20. ^ "NASA's Global Reach: Pakistan". www.planetary.org. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  21. ^ "NASA Engineer Nagin Cox Inspires Technical Audiences and Empowers Young People in Rio de Janeiro and Bahia | U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Brazil". U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Brazil. 14 October 2014. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  22. ^ ACMSIGGRAPH (11 August 2016), SIGGRAPH 2016 – NASA's Z. Nagin Cox, Keynote Speaker, retrieved 19 June 2018
  23. ^ "Cemetech | News | STEM and Exploring Mars: A Chat with Z. Nagin Cox of NASA". www.cemetech.net. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  24. ^ "Expert of NASA Nagin Cox to arrive in BiH - Sarajevo Times". Sarajevo Times. 9 April 2016. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  25. ^ Mićević, Nemanja. "Lecture Eng. Nagin Cox, NASA__14th of April 2016". msurs.net. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  26. ^ "Living On Two Planets: A TEDx Talk by Nagin Cox". Journalists For Space. 9 January 2017. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  27. ^ Plummer, Libby. "From Stephen Hawking to AI: nine of the best science talks". Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  28. ^ Cox, Nagin (3 February 2017), What time is it on Mars?, retrieved 19 June 2018
  29. ^ "Kuwaitis are keen on space know-how, says NASA expert". Arab Times. 9 March 2018. Retrieved 19 June 2018 – via PressReader.
  30. ^ Hasan, Shazia (28 May 2014). "Nasa engineer recounts stories of robotic missions to Mars". DAWN.COM. Retrieved 19 June 2018.

External links[edit]

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