The National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) in the United States has selected a new crew of four volunteers, including a Sri Lankan, to participate in a simulated mission to Mars within a habitat at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Issuing a statement, NASA stated that Jason Lee, Stephanie Navarro, Shareef Al Romaithi, and Piyumi Wijesekara will step into the agency’s Human Exploration Research Analog, or HERA, on Friday, May 10.
Sri Lanka’s Dr. Piyumi Wijesekara will be part of the primary crew selected to participate in the simulated mission to Mars. Piyumi Wijesekara is a postdoctoral research scientist in the Radiation Biophysics Laboratory at NASA Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley.
Her research focuses on developing tissue models to investigate the effects of spaceflight stressors, including ionizing radiation and lunar dust, on the human respiratory system with the eventual goal of applying them to ensure the health and safety of astronauts during up lunar and Mars Missions.
Dr. Piyumi Wijesekara is a multidisciplinary researcher with experience in tissue and organ engineering and regenerative medicine.
She received her B.S. in Bioengineering from the University of California San Diego in 2015 and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2017 and 2022.
While pursuing her Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon University, she focused on stem cell and organ engineering, with a particular emphasis on lung engineering, to investigate human respiratory pathophysiology.
