She attended California State University, Fullerton, where she competed on the CSUF Titans' track and field team as a sprinter and long jumper.

[3] As an undergraduate researcher at California State University, Fullerton, she designed, constructed and implemented electronics and hardware associated with a laser-ionization, time-of-flight mass spectrometer for studying atmospherically relevant gas-phase chemistry.

During college and after it, she also worked as an electrician and inside wireman for her father's electrical contracting company, where she performed commercial and light industrial construction.

[6] She also designed and built peripheral components for a variable temperature, ultra-high vacuum scanning tunneling microscopy system.

[1] In 1997, Caldwell Dyson received the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Postdoctoral Fellowship in Environmental Science to study atmospheric chemistry at the University of California, Irvine.

As Tracy Dyson, she is the host of a series on NASA TV called StationLife, which focuses on facets of life aboard the International Space Station.

[8] On March 21, 2017, Caldwell Dyson stood behind President Trump as he signed a bill for NASA to send humans to Mars in the 2030s and receive $19.5 billion in 2018 funding.

Caldwell Dyson and fellow NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy presented Trump with an official flight jacket during the ceremony.

During the mission, she successfully added another truss segment, a new gyroscope and external spare parts platform to the International Space Station.

A new system that enables docked shuttles to draw electrical power from the station to extend visits to the outpost was activated successfully.

From May 16 to May 23, the second and last Space Shuttle visiting mission for Caldwell-Dyson's flight, STS-132, joined the Expedition 23 crew for the installation of the Russian-built module Rassvet.

[13] During this spaceflight, she completed three spacewalks, logging 22 hrs and 49 minutes of EVA work to replace a malfunctioning coolant pump.

[16] After a two-day rendezvous profile, the Soyuz crew docked with International Space Station's Prichal module on March 25, 2024.

All of their EVAs were postponed to a later date after the incident, and Expedition 71 remained focused on their scientific work, cargo vehicle traffic, and maintenance tasks.

Caldwell Dyson spent six months on the station and returned on September 23, 2024, with Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub on the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft.

[21] Caldwell Dyson advised Jessica Chastain when the actress was preparing to appear as an astronaut and mission commander in the 2015 movie The Martian.

[citation needed] This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.