UCSD graduate becomes fourth alum to serve as NASA astronaut

Domenick Candelieri
·2 min read
1

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — A University of California, San Diego graduate is putting her school on the map….in space.

On March 5, Deniz Burnham became a part of NASA’s 23rd class of astronauts from a pool of more than 12,000 applicants narrowed down to only 12, UC San Diego officials announced last week.

Burnham, who received a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering at the University of California San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, is one of four UC San Diego alumni to complete training and serve as a NASA astronaut. The other three alums are women, with one of them being Sally Ride, the first American woman to fly in space.

After two years of basic training, Burnham can go on missions to the moon, the International Space Station and Mars, the university said.

“After this long two-plus year journey of training as an astronaut candidate, we’re honestly just ready to serve,” Burnham said. “We’ll be supporting in our ground jobs while we wait for flight assignments.”

Navy sailor dies on San Diego-based USS Halsey

Burnham’s experience includes being a leader in the energy industry, an engineering duty officer in the Navy Reserves, a private pilot of both planes and helicopters, and a paraglider.

“Studying engineering is all about learning how to think critically and approaching challenging problems from different perspectives, especially when you’re working on assignments as a group,” she said. “These are the skills that are very useful. You’re always going to come up with a problem that you’ve never seen before, but you’re developing the skills to not be afraid to take on that challenge.”

Burnham was born on Incirlik Air Base in Adana, Turkey and then moved to Northern California before high school when her mom was stationed at Travis Air Force Base. She says she always wanted to be a NASA astronaut, but didn’t know the path to get there.

“I knew I wanted to be an engineer– there’s a STEM requirement for astronaut selection, but specifically engineering is what spoke to me because I liked the application aspect,” Burnham said.

Burnham is eligible for any missions for NASA’s Artemis generation, which collaborates with commercial and international partners.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego & KUSI News.