In January 1986, Allison Bolinger’s family gathered at her great-grandmother’s home in Ohio, after the death of her great-grandfather. Bolinger, then not even 5, was plopped in front of the TV. The news showed replays of the main event of the day: The space shuttle Challenger’s explosion.

After that, whenever anyone asked Bolinger what she wanted to be when she grew up, she said an #astronaut.

She was “obsessed” with NASA. She attended space camps as a sixth grader and as a senior in high school. By the latter visit, her natural abilities toward engineering had surfaced, as she’d excelled in math and science. She’d also realized by then a tendency to get carsick and a fear of heights probably meant she wouldn’t be an astronaut.

But #NASA still was a goal.

Bolinger persistently pursued it with passion.

She knew Purdue had the largest presence in the astronaut corps, aside from the military at the time, so that’s where she enrolled and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering in 2004. While she was at Purdue in 2001, she started in NASA’s co-op program.

She’s been at the agency ever since, and in 2018, she was selected as a flight director.

When she completed her certification in October 2019, she became the 95th flight director in NASA’s history.

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Purdue University's College of Engineering is among the largest in the United States. It includes 13 academic programs and is ranked top 10 nationwide by U.S. News and World Report. Purdue Engineering's long list of pioneers includes Neil Armstrong -- one of 27 in the university's "Cradle of Astronauts" -- and Amelia Earhart.

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