In Good Company
Alumni talk about their careers, lives, and other adventures. In this installment, we meet an adventurer who may not have made it to infinity and beyond, but he’s come close.
Who: Scott Parazynski, ’83, MD ’89.
Current Positions: Former NASA Astronaut, mountaineer, public speaker, and inventor. Chairman of the Board, Challenger Center for Space Science Education. Chief Medical Officer and Director of Business Development, Wyle Integrated Science and Engineering.
How I got here: Ten years on the Farm certainly helped launch my career, but I attribute my success to my encouraging and enthusiastic parents. I grew up in the shadow of the space program, my father serving as an engineer on the Apollo Program. I had model rockets and posters on the wall, and read about the exploits of great explorers: Mallory, Glenn, Cousteau, Hillary, Armstrong, and Gagarin. I was always interested in medicine and helping others, so I set my sights on becoming a physician astronaut (and climber). My dad’s job later took us to West Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, where he was in international marketing for The Boeing Company. Through travel, I learned that some of life’s greatest lessons come from outside the classroom.
What keeps me motivated: My kids and their futures keep me revved up. Other passions are seeing that the United States maintains a leadership role in the exploration of space, and inspiring young people to pursue degrees and careers in science, medicine, and engineering. Through my involvement in the Challenger Center, we suspend disbelief and allow kids to participate in exploratory missions to comets, the International Space Station, and Mars, and in so doing, ignite their passion for learning.
What keeps me up at night: I love to tackle difficult problems with technology, but one area that remains a mystery is the origin and potential for interruptible pathways in autism. My beautiful 11-year-old daughter suffers from it, and so I dwell on ways we might one day combat this devastating epidemic, now affecting 1 in 150 children born today.
Most important thing learned in medical school: Time management. Whether taking care of 30 patients in an Emergency Department, dealing with dozens of simultaneous malfunctions in the Space Shuttle simulator, or handling business crises, the ability to juggle many things at once has been a huge asset to me in life.
What I do to relax: Playing basketball with my son and tinkering in my workshop are favorite ways to unwind, although my shop is so cluttered with projects, it’s tough to get in there right now. Our vacations are often anything but relaxing: climbing, hiking, biking, rafting, and other water sports with my family are my favorites.
What’s on my nightstand: I chronically have a stack of 40+ books, only half of which I’ve read and half of which I’ve partially completed. Current topics include innovation, bioterrorism, Himalayan mountaineering, autism, and a couple biographies (Colin Powell, Hillary Clinton).