A Sri Lankan scientist , Piyumi Wijesekara is among the new crew of four volunteers selected by NASA to participate in a simulated mission to Mars within a habitat at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Issuing a statement, NASA announced that Jason Lee, Stephanie Navarro, Shareef Al Romaithi, and Piyumi Wijesekara will step into the agency’s Human Exploration Research Analog, or HERA, on Friday, May 10.
Sri Lanka’s Piyumi Wijesekara will be part of the primary crew selected to participate in the simulated mission to Mars. Piyumi Wijesekara is a postdoctoral research scientist in the Radiation Biophysics Laboratory at NASA Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. Her research focuses on developing tissue models to investigate the effects of spaceflight stressors, including ionizing radiation and lunar dust on the human respiratory system.
