UBC alumna Jessica Meir gave students an unusual office tour on Thursday as she floated and flipped inside her zero-gravity workplace \u2014 the orbiting International Space Station.<\/p>\n
Meir is a NASA astronaut and the commander of a SpaceX Crew-12 mission to the station, where she\u2019s living for eight months.<\/p>\n
U.S.-based Meir, who taught a flock of geese how to fly at UBC as part of her zoology research there from 2009 to 2012, answered questions from high school and university students on subjects ranging from space suit design research to how she keeps her curly hair clean in space.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, gravity isn\u2019t pulling down at my curls. And it all kind of stands up here in this sort of curly Afro look, which I\u2019m totally into,\u201d Meir said as her distinctive hair floated above her.<\/p>\n
She spoke for about 20 minutes on the Zoom call that was screened at the alumni association building at the Vancouver campus, with a UBC flag in the background and her UBC zoology T-shirt proudly on display.<\/p>\n
Meir spoke about how hard it is to adjust to basic tasks like drinking water or using the washroom in a zero-gravity environment, and said it was initially hard for her brain to adjust to tasks that seemed easy on Earth.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to keep track of everything. You take your hand off something, it floats away in the ventilation and it\u2019s suddenly gone, disappears instantly, and then out of nowhere it will sometimes just come back and be floating right in front of your face again,\u201d Meir said. \u201cSo, all of that stuff brings a lot of unexpected outcomes to the day.\u201d<\/p>\n
In between questions, Meir did somersaults for the audience which also included daycare students, one dressed in a NASA-branded spacesuit costume.<\/p>\n
Bill Milsom, a professor emeritus of zoology at UBC who was once Meir\u2019s PhD supervisor, said she was a highly motivated student who was a \u201cjoy to work with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meir\u2019s post-doctoral research saw her raise 12 geese from eggs, and she taught them how to fly by leading them around campus on her scooter. She also studied birds as they flew in wind-tunnels to learn more about a species that flies in high-altitude environments.<\/p>\n
Milsom said it\u2019s \u201cfantastic\u201d to see his former student reach great heights \u2014 literally, as she now works hundreds of kilometres above the Earth.<\/p>\n
He added that Meir\u2019s first application to NASA resulted in a rejection.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt took Jessica two goes to get into the program. But if you persevere and keep at it, things quite often work out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Meir told students that while space has its challenges, like physically and mentally demanding spacewalks, it\u2019s not the hardest part of life in orbit.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn my first missions six years ago, I wasn\u2019t married and I didn\u2019t have any kids, and now I have a husband and a three-year-old daughter,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo for me the hardest part about being up here is being away from them.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 26, 2026.<\/p>\n