J'Tia Hart (''

née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

'' Taylor; born September 1, 1981) is a nuclear engineer and television personality. She is the Chief Science Officer for National and Homeland Security at the

Idaho National Laboratory Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is one of the national laboratories of the United States Department of Energy and is managed by the Battelle Energy Alliance. Historically, the lab has been involved with nuclear research, although the labora ...

and competed on '' Survivor: Cagayan''.

Early life and education

Hart is a native of

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

and the youngest of 10 children. She attended

Miami-Dade County Public Schools Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) is the public school district serving Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in the U.S. state of Florida. Founded in 1885, it is the largest school district in Florida, the largest in the South ...

. While studying at Hialeah Miami Lakes Senior High School she pursued extra mathematics and science classes, which lead to an early graduation at the age of 15. Hart continued her studies at

Florida State University Florida State University (FSU or Florida State) is a Public university, public research university in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preeminent university in the s ...

. At 17 Hart took a school trip to visit a nuclear submarine, which piqued her interest. Despite her interest in math, science, and nuclear engineering Hart first pursued a career in modeling before earning her master's and doctoral degrees in nuclear engineering from the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...

. She was the first Black woman to receive a PhD from the department.

Career

Nuclear engineering career

Hart previously worked as a program lead at Argonne National Lab before becoming the Chief Science Officer at Idaho National Laboratory. Hart is an advocate for women and people of color in STEM. She is the founder of STEM Queens, a web series highlighting the accomplishments of Black women in STEM. Hart is also an If/Then ambassador and was featured in the Smithsonian's "#IfThenSheCan – The Exhibit", a collection of life-sized 3D-printed statues of role models in STEM.

''Survivor''

In 2014, it was revealed that Hart (then Taylor) had been cast on the 28th season of ''

Survivor Survivor(s) may refer to: * one who survives Arts, entertainment and media Fictional entities * Survivors, characters in the 1997 KKnD series#Armies, ''KKnD'' video-game series * ''The Survivors'', or the ''New Survivors Foundation'', a fictional ...

'', '' Survivor: Cagayan - Brawn vs. Brains vs. Beauty'' where Hart was cast on Luzon - the brain tribe - alongside Garrett Adelstein, Spencer Bledsoe, Tasha Fox, Kass McQuillen and David Samson. Hart became infamous for unintentionally annoying her tribe in the first episode due to her being perceived as bossy and taking control of building the shelter. After Luzon lost the first immunity challenge, Hart aligned with Adelstein, Bledsoe and Fox to vote Samson out first due to him being seen as untrustworthy. After Luzon lost the second immunity challenge, due to Hart being unable to complete the puzzle, despite being the first person to start it, Adelstein was determined to send Hart out of the game, so restricted anyone from talking to each other, which annoyed Fox and Hart. While the tribe, minus Hart, went to the water Hart dumped nearly all of the tribe's

rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...

into the fire, admitting to it at tribal council. Despite all this, Hart was spared as Fox and McQuillen voted out Adelstein due to fear of being on the bottom of the tribe. Luzon won the third immunity challenge, but went on to lose the fourth one, once again due to Hart's struggles with challenges, even losing to Aparri (brawn), who were trying to throw the challenge, where Fox and McQuillen voted Hart out over Bledsoe, due to fears of challenge losses.

Post-show

After competing on season 28 of ''

'', Hart created a petition for the show to become more diverse.

Personal life

Hart lives in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

with her husband and two children.

References

1981 births Living people Grainger College of Engineering alumni Survivor (franchise) contestants American nuclear engineers Florida State University alumni Argonne National Laboratory people {{DEFAULTSORT:Hart, J'Tia