{"id":125864,"date":"2022-02-11T10:51:09","date_gmt":"2022-02-11T15:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=125864"},"modified":"2025-10-21T15:26:58","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T19:26:58","slug":"pushing-the-boundaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/pushing-the-boundaries\/","title":{"rendered":"Pushing the Boundaries"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kathleen Loftin \u201989 \u201900MS \u201909PhD<\/strong> is in her happy place on a Saturday morning: pulling weeds in her garden. The work is peaceful, filthy, and as down to earth as you can possibly be.<\/p>\n

\u201cPapayas grow without much effort,\u201d Loftin says, sounding more like a wonder-struck gardener than the center chief technologist at Kennedy Space Center. Actually, she\u2019s both. Loftin spends Monday through Friday leading a team of researchers who are figuring out how to sustain healthy human life from the moon to Mars, and yet here she is, mesmerized with papayas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey could be the answer to world hunger,\u201d says Loftin, who studied chemistry at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s joking. Or is she? You\u2019d be wise to never doubt Loftin and her easy-going nature. Others have made that mistake, which she uses as fuel in her personal mission to take us to unimaginable places.<\/p>\n

Here she shares her inspirations for pursuing a career in STEM and her contributions to field of space exploration<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On being a modern scientist:
\n<\/em>People are always surprised to hear what I do.<\/strong> The women in my book club and in our bunco group will hear me talk about NASA and say, \u201cReally? You\u2019re a researcher in space exploration? You<\/em>?\u201d I guess they\u2019re used to a stereotype of a scientist \u2014 it isn\u2019t someone who kayaks and works the garden on weekends.<\/p>\n

On what keeps her inspired:
\n<\/em>A Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ professor said something I think about daily.<\/strong> The late Chris Clausen, my chemistry professor, would say, \u201cWhat did you do to push the boundaries of science today?\u201d That question still inspires me. It brings me out of the weeds to realize the magnitude of what we\u2019re doing at Kennedy Space Center. Our work is much, much<\/em> bigger than myself.<\/p>\n

On supporting life on Mars:
\n<\/em>Did you see The Martian<\/em>?<\/strong> It\u2019s based on the novel by Andy Weir, but the idea comes from NASA\u2019s research on In-Situ Resource Utilization [ISRU]. Do you know the part in the movie where Matt Damon grows potatoes on Mars? We\u2019ve been working on something like that for years as a way to sustain human space explorers on long duration missions. And now with the upcoming Artemis I flight we\u2019re bringing it a step closer to reality. It\u2019s the first in a series of launches that will take us closer to our goal: to allow humans to live on the moon and prepare for sending astronauts to Mars \u2014 and to bring them back safely.<\/p>\n

On her role with NASA:
\n<\/em>My role is very technical. <\/strong>I oversee the research and technological efforts of the mission. It\u2019s why I love gardening \u2014 to keep my brain in balance. Both of my passions are helpful in my work with Artemis. Think about it. When Lewis and Clark trekked across America, they had to figure out ways to use the land. They couldn\u2019t carry everything necessary for survival. It\u2019s a similar concept with ISRU. When we go to the moon or Mars, there is a limit on what we can take. So we\u2019re learning how to break down the moon\u2019s soil into breathable oxygen and how to use the metals there to build launch pads, parts, and infrastructure. From there we can learn how to sustain life on Mars in the future for months or years. How exciting is that<\/em>?<\/p>\n

On finding her passion for science:
\n<\/em>This all started with rocks. <\/strong>They fascinated me as a young girl when our family would camp in north Georgia. I\u2019d find quartz and amethyst, or jade when we traveled out west. In 8th<\/sup> grade I brought the rock collection to my science teacher, and she showed a genuine interest. Her encouragement helped me create an identity for myself in science.<\/p>\n

On rising to the challenge:
\n<\/em>Teachers sometimes underestimated me.<\/strong> My chemistry teacher in 10th<\/sup> grade said, \u201cBoys are better in science, so I don\u2019t expect girls to do as well.\u201d I can\u2019t imagine a teacher saying that today. Back then, I took it as a challenge. I thought, \u201cGame on! Let\u2019s go!\u201d I still feel that way.<\/p>\n

On her time at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½:
\n<\/em>I\u2019ve always felt that I got a lot of bang for my buck at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½. <\/strong>As an undergraduate in chemistry<\/a>, I could get my hands into meaningful research. It didn\u2019t matter that I was a girl or that I didn\u2019t have a bachelor\u2019s degree yet. There were no limitations.<\/p>\n

And then there were the shuttle launches. <\/strong>We\u2019d stand on a roof at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ to watch them, and the entire building would shake under our feet. I loved that so much. I still love every launch. It\u2019s hard to explain what it does to my soul whenever a rocket goes up.<\/p>\n

On pivoting her career:
\n<\/em>I didn\u2019t plan this career. <\/strong>I\u2019m an inventor. In the early 2000s I was part of a team that developed a product [zero-valent iron, or EZVI] to clean chlorinated chemicals out of the environment. We happened to bring our work over to NASA, and the place amazed me. The scientists and their work \u2026 I wanted to be around it.<\/p>\n

On another great woman in STEM:
\n<\/em>The woman who changed my life is still at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½. Cherie Yestrebsky \u201990<\/strong>. We were undergraduates together. We both took breaks from our career pursuits to raise our families. We worked on the EZVI product together and she\u2019s now the chair of Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½\u2019s chemistry department. We\u2019re both in the Space Technology Hall of Fame. It means a lot to have another woman, who\u2019s also a mother, motivating you to push further and further.<\/p>\n

On the magic of science:
\n<\/em>Science can be so cool. <\/strong>When my kids were little, I\u2019d go to their classes with a full-on lab coat and do chemical \u201cmagic shows.\u201d We\u2019d make shuttles out of hot dogs, cheese sticks, ketchup, and mustard. After 30 minutes, all these first graders felt like scientists. They could identify all parts of a shuttle \u2014 and then eat it.<\/p>\n

On being limitless:
\n<\/em>My message for girls and women: Never doubt yourself.<\/strong> If anyone doubts you, use it as motivation. I still do that. We\u2019re all capable of anything. There is no glass ceiling. Just look how far we\u2019ve come and look what we\u2019re about to do next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Neighbors see Kathleen Loftin \u201989 \u201900MS \u201909PhD<\/strong> growing tropical fruit in her yard. Little do they know that she\u2019s also guiding research to grow food on the moon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":125865,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[15992,24],"tags":[982,13545,4430,202],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-125864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-science-technology","tag-college-of-sciences","tag-department-of-chemistry","tag-stem","tag-alumni"],"yoast_head":"\nPushing the Boundaries | Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Neighbors see Kathleen Loftin \u201989 \u201900MS \u201909PhD growing tropical fruit in her yard. 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