Portal:Space exploration/Biography/Week 47 2007

Judith Arlene Resnik (April 5, 1949 – January 28, 1986) was an American engineer and a NASA astronaut who died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster during the launch of the mission STS-51-L.

Resnik was born in Akron, Ohio and attended Hebrew school. She graduated from Firestone High School. She received a B.S. in electrical engineering from Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University in 1970, the year she married fellow student Michael Oldak. They divorced in 1974. Resnik earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 1977 at the University of Maryland. After graduation from Carnegie Mellon, she was employed at RCA where she was a design engineer, and later worked with various NASA projects contracted to the company.

While working toward her doctorate, Resnik was affiliated with the National Institutes of Health as a biomedical engineer. Later, she was a systems engineer with Xerox Corporation.

Resnik was selected for the astronaut program in January 1978, and had served as a mission specialist on the maiden voyage of Space Shuttle Discovery, from August to September 1984. She was likewise a mission specialist aboard the Challenger.

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