Two alumni from Boston area universities are among ten individuals selected by NASA for this year’s US astronaut candidates class.
US Air Force Maj. Adam Fuhrmann, who graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2011, and Dr. Imelda Muller, who graduated from Northeastern in 2013, were both selected from a pool of 8,000 applicants, NASA announced in a live ceremony Sep. 22.
“I’m also excited to do things that I have never done before,” Muller said in an article for the Northeastern Global News. “For me, I don’t have a background in flight, and I’m very excited to learn from our pilots here and our trainers.”
At the ceremony, Fuhrmann said he had “excitement and just extreme gratitude for the opportunity” to join the NASA team.
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“I was just in disbelief,” he said.
The candidates will complete two years of training before becoming eligible for flight assignments to low Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars, according to a press release issued Monday by NASA.
It is the 24th astronaut class for NASA since the original Mercury Seven made their debut in 1959. The previous class was in 2021.
“Today, our mission propels us even further as we prepare for our next giant leap,” Vanessa Wyche, director of NASA Johnson, said in the release. “Representing America’s best and brightest, this astronaut candidate class will usher in the golden age of innovation and exploration as we push toward the Moon and Mars.”
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The eight other candidates are Chief Warrant Officer Ben Bailey, Air Force Major Cameron Jones, Katherine Spies, Anna Menon, Navy Lieutenant Commander Erin Overcash, Lauren Edgar, Yuri Kubo, and Rebecca Lawler.
Acting NASA administrator Sean Duffy presided over the ceremony, held at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
“The ten men and women sitting here today embody the truth that in America, regardless of where you start, there is no limit to what a determined dreamer can achieve – even going to space,” he said.
Maj. Fuhrmann, a 35-year-old Air Force test pilot, holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from MIT, according to NASA’s release.
While at MIT, he was a member of an Air Force ROTC detachment and served as a student leader at the Bernard M. Gordon-MIT Engineering Leadership Program, according to an article in MIT News.
“We are tremendously proud of Adam for this notable accomplishment, and we look forward to following his journey through astronaut candidate school and beyond,” Leo McGonagle, the program’s founding and executive editor, said in the article.
According to the article, Fuhrmann asked McGonagle, himself a former US Army Lt. Colonel, to administer his oath of commissioning into the US Air Force.
Fuhrmann, a native of Leesburg, Virginia, logged 400 combat hours flying fighter jets in Afghanistan, according to NASA’s release.
At the time of his selection, he was serving as the director of operations for an Air Force flight test unit, according to NASA.
“I’m happy to try to bring some of that experience to do the same thing with the NASA team and learn from everyone at Johnson Space Center how to apply those lessons to human spaceflight,” Fuhrmann said at the ceremony.
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Muller, a 34-year-old anesthesiologist from Copake Falls, New York, earned her bachelor’s degree in behavioral neuroscience from Northeastern University, according to NASA.
After earning her medical degree from the University of Vermont in 2017, Muller served as a lieutenant in the US Navy, providing medical support during dive training at NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, the agency said.
At the time of her selection, Muller was completing a residency in anesthesia at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, according to NASA.
“The future of space medicine is now,” she said during the ceremony. “I’m incredibly honored to be here with this team.”
Truman Dickerson can be reached at truman.dickerson@globe.com.