Meet Indian genius, who worked on NASA's Rs 73700 crore project, married to a scientist, she is...

Hashima Hasan has been a scientist at NASA for 30 years. The Indian-origin woman works as a Deputy Program Scientist of James Webb Space Telescope and the Education and Public Outreach Lead for Astrophysics. She was born and brought up in Lucknow. Hashima has been the program scientist for many NASA missions, including Hubble Space Telescope.

Hashima’s journey began as an astronomer. Later, she became one of the key scientists behind the James Webb Space Telescope project which was launched in December 2021 with an estimated cost of USD 10 billion (roughly Rs. 73,700 crores at the time). She joined NASA headquarters in 1994 as a visiting senior scientist. Hashima's marriage took her to the US, where she got hired to work on the Hubble, and then on the James Webb telescope. She is married to Aftab Ansari.

Hashima was one of the first-ever science students in her school. She earned a B.Sc degree from Lucknow University. In 1970, she earned her master's degree in physics from Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). The woman won a scholarship to Oxford University and received her doctorate in Physics in 1976. Till 1985, Dr Hasan conducted post-doctoral research and held teaching positions in the areas of Theoretical Nuclear Physics and in Environmental Science.

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Her association with NASA started in 1985 when she joined the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore. By then, she was a mother of two toddler sons and had to juggle her time between home and work. Years later, she works on monitoring and managing the science program for the Webb Telescope.