First Italian woman in space and record holder for the longest single space flight for a woman, lasting 199 days and 16 hours, Samantha Cristoforetti was born in 1977 in Milan.
Always been passionate about science and technology with a great desire to learn which has led her to be fluent in English, German, French and Russian in addition to Italian, her native language.
AstroSam, as she is called, completed her secondary education in Trento after having spent one year as an exchange student in the USA. In 2001, she graduated from the Technical University of Munich (Germany) and then she spent four months at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de l’Aéronautique et de l’Espace in Toulouse (France). Finally, she concluded her academic formation with a master’s thesis that she wrote during a 10-month research stay at the Mendeleev University of Chemical Technologies in Moscow (Russia).
Prior to her 200 days on the International Space Station, Sam was a military pilot, Air Force captain, and engineer. She was also one of the first women to be a lieutenant and fighter pilot in the Italian Air Force.
For her achievements, in 2015 Samantha was awarded the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic by the Italian president. Furthermore, AstroSam is very active on social media which makes it possible for her to stay in touch with the different organisations as well as her community and family, even during the space missions while she supports numerous international experiments. She uses her social accounts not only to share her life in orbit and her passions like the coffee one, but also to support many different no profit associations such as UNICEF as an ambassador and advocate of advancing women in science and technology careers.
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