Nicole Stott - Ambassador to the cosmos and to our humanity

Nicole Stott has a towering range of knowledge and experience, from the heights of outer space as a NASA astronaut to the depths of the ocean as an aquanaut, from the rigor and structure of science to the openness and imagination of art. She continually defies category, and her life embodies the creativity and interconnection that we are called to in the face of planetary challenges.

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Nicole is veteran NASA Astronaut and Aquanaut. Her experience includes two spaceflights and 104 days living and working in space on both the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station (ISS).

She was the last crew member to fly to and from the ISS on a Space Shuttle, and she was a member of the crew of the final flight of the Space Shuttle Discovery, STS-133.

As an aquanaut, Nicole Stott spent 18 days, the longest saturation mission to date, on the Aquarius undersea habitat.

Nicole believes that the international model of peaceful and successful cooperation we have experienced in the extreme environments of space and sea holds the key to the same kind of peaceful and successful cooperation for all of humanity here on Earth. Her wonderful book is Back to Earth: What Life in Space Taught Me About Our Home Planet and Our Mission to Protect It.

On Earth and in space, Nicole is also an artist.

Nicole is now retired from NASA during which time she has pioneered integrating art and science, herself a revelatory pathway between and among them, affecting perspective shifts to help humankind understand and creatively respond to our planetary challenges. She brings her experience in outer space and in the depths of the ocean to help advance our cultural imagination to create a more flourishing society together with our planet. She founded the Space for Art Foundation to do this work.

To delve into Nicole's life and perspective across science and art, Earth and space is to complicate the walls we put up around things and to open our minds to creative new ways of living.