Nicole Stott is an astronaut and artist who creatively combines the awe and wonder of her spaceflight experience with her artwork to inspire everyone’s appreciation of our role as crewmates here on Spaceship Earth.

A veteran NASA Astronaut with two spaceflights, she lived and worked in space for 104 days as a crewmember on both the International Space Station (ISS) and the Space Shuttle. She performed one spacewalk (10th female to do so), was the first person to fly the robotic arm to capture the free-flying HTV cargo vehicle, she was the last crew member to fly to and from their ISS mission on a Space Shuttle, and she was a member of the crew of the final flight of the Space Shuttle Discovery, STS-133.

A personal highlight of Nicole’s spaceflight was painting the first watercolor in space, which is now on display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

She is also a NASA Aquanaut, where in preparation for spaceflight she was a crewmember on the longest duration saturation dive mission on the Aquarius undersea laboratory. Prior to astronaut selection in 2000, Nicole had served for ten years as a NASA engineer and program manager at the Kennedy Space Center for the Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs, and two years at the Johnson Space Center as a flight engineer on the Shuttle Training Aircraft.

Nicole believes that the international model of peaceful and successful cooperation we have experienced in the extreme environments of space and sea hold the key to the same kind of peaceful and successful cooperation for all of humanity here on Earth.

Now retired from NASA, she founded the Space for Art Foundation to bring space and art together for children around the world – helping them overcome the challenges they’re facing through the wonder and awe of space exploration, the inspiration of Spaceship Earth, and the healing power of art.

Nicole is a graduate of St. Petersburg College, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and the University of Central Florida, and she is an avid SCUBA diver and instrumented rated private pilot.