Norah Patten is an Irish

aeronautical engineer Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is s ...

and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) advocate from

Ballina, County Mayo Ballina ( ; ) is a town in north County Mayo, Ireland. It lies at the mouth of the River Moy near Killala Bay, in the Moy valley and civil parishes in Ireland, civil parish of Kilmoremoy, with the Ox Mountains to the east and the Nephin Beg Ra ...

. Patten was selected to potentially become the first Irish person in space as part of a mission on board

Virgin Galactic Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. is a British-American spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson and the Virgin Group conglomerate, which retains an 11.9% stake through Virgin Investments Limited. It is headquartered in California, and opera ...

's second generation of spacecraft. This mission, known as Delta, is proposed to take place in 2026/2027.

Early life and education

Patten was born in

. She attended St. Mary's Secondary School, and has been fascinated by space since visiting NASA's Glenn Research Centre in

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

when she was 11 years old. She designed rockets for her junior certificate art project. She visited NASA on several occasions as a teenager and opted to study aeronautical engineering at the

University of Limerick University of Limerick (UL) () is a Public university, public research university institution in Limerick, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Founded in 1972, as the National Institute for Higher Education, Limerick, it became a university in Septemb ...

. Patten completed a work placement at

Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...

during her undergraduate degree program and continued her education at the

, where she obtained a doctorate in

aerodynamics Aerodynamics () is the study of the motion of atmosphere of Earth, air, particularly when affected by a solid object, such as an airplane wing. It involves topics covered in the field of fluid dynamics and its subfield of gas dynamics, and is an ...

in 2011. She completed a work placement in

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey, the compa ...

during this time. Patten participated

European Space Agency The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member International organization, international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 ...

supported Alpbach Summer School in 2008 and graduated from the

International Space University The International Space University (ISU) is a higher education institute headquartered in Illkirch-Graffenstaden, a suburb of Strasbourg, France. It is dedicated to the discovery, research, and development of outer space and its applications f ...

Space Studies Program in 2010.

Career

Patten worked as a lecturer and project manager at

before joining the Irish Composites Centre as the communications and outreach manager in 2012. Patten initiated and managed "The Only Way is Up" project, which sent Ireland's first student experiment to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

in 2014, through a commercial agreement with

NanoRacks Nanoracks LLC is an American private in-space services company which builds space hardware and in-space repurposing tools. The company also facilitates experiments and launches of CubeSats to Low Earth Orbit. Nanoracks's main office is in H ...

. She was awarded an

International Astronautical Federation The International Astronautical Federation (IAF) is an international space advocacy organization based in Paris, and founded in 1951 as a non-governmental organization to establish a dialogue between scientists around the world and to lay t ...

Emerging Space Leaders Grant and was a panellist on the Next Generation Plenary in 2015 . Patten has been selected as department and team project chair at the

on a number of occasions and was elected as a member of the voluntary global faculty of the

in 2016. Patten was the first Irish participant at Project PoSSUM and has completed high-g flights, hypoxia training, aviation egress training and spacesuit testing and evaluations.

Communication and outreach

Patten is an advocate for STEM education. She has appeared on several national television shows including

Virgin Media One Virgin Media One, also called Virgin One, is an Irish free-to-air television channel owned by Virgin Media Ireland (part of Liberty Global), operated through its subsidiary Virgin Media Television. The channel launched on 20 September 19 ...

Ireland AM ''Ireland AM'' is an Irish morning television show on Virgin Media One. It airs live every weekday from 07:00 to 10:00, and weekends from 9:00 to 12:00. The program features news, current affairs, weather updates, showbiz, fashion, beauty, f ...

and several radio programs, including on

Today FM Today FM is an Irish commercial FM radio station, owned and operated by Bauer Media Audio Ireland Limited. Broadcasting since 17 March 1997, it broadcasts mostly music, with a daily news and current affairs programme. Today FM holds a licen ...

. She has given several keynote speeches and worked with Irish companies to promote STEM initiatives. Patten was among Limerick's Top 40 under 40 featured in

Image An image or picture is a visual representation. An image can be Two-dimensional space, two-dimensional, such as a drawing, painting, or photograph, or Three-dimensional space, three-dimensional, such as a carving or sculpture. Images may be di ...

as part of the "Changemakers" series in 2018. Patten created "Planet Zebunar", a STEM product for children that is she has described as "inclusive, non-gender specific and offer ngan immersive experience" using both "offline and online technologies", including

augmented reality Augmented reality (AR), also known as mixed reality (MR), is a technology that overlays real-time 3D computer graphics, 3D-rendered computer graphics onto a portion of the real world through a display, such as a handheld device or head-mounted ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Patten, Norah Living people Aeronautical engineers Women space scientists People from Ballina, County Mayo Year of birth missing (living people) Engineers from County Mayo Alumni of the University of Limerick 21st-century Irish engineers 21st-century Irish women engineers