Nagin Cox: What Does Time On Mars Teach Us About Time On Earth?

 

By NPR/TED STAFF

NASA engineer Nagin Cox lives on Earth but works on Mars time, where days are longer and time works differently. Her work with the rovers has entirely changed the way she thinks about time on Earth.

About Nagin Cox

Nagin Cox is a spacecraft operations engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. For her current mission, Cox serves as the deputy team chief of the engineering operations team for the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover. She has also held leadership and system engineering roles on robotic missions including the Galileo Mission to Jupiter, the Mars Spirit and Oppurtunity Rovers, the Kepler Exoplanet Hunter, the InSight Mission to Mars, and the Mars Curiosity Rover.

Prior to joining NASA in 1993, she served six years in the U.S. Air Force, including duty as a space operations officer at NORAD/U.S. Space Command.

Cox received her master's in Space Operations Systems Engineering from Air Force Institute of Technology, and two bachelor's in Engineering and Psychology from Cornell University.