Judy Sullivan is an American retired biomedical engineer who worked for NASA during the Apollo 11, Apollo 10, Apollo 9, Apollo 8 and Gemini 12 missions. For the Apollo 9 and Apollo 11 missions, she was lead biomedical engineer. Sullivan was the only woman in her department, and one of only a relative few women working for NASA in a technical role at that time. She was the first woman engineer hired by NASA for spacecraft testing.
Education and early career
Sullivan attended Jacksonville State College in Alabama, having been valedictorian of her high school class, also in Alabama. She majored in biology, and minored in chemistry and math. She decided she wanted to study math and science after she heard a speech by president John F. Kennedy in which he encouraged more scholars to study engineering, science, and math. Sullivan graduated second in her class at college. She has said that she would have preferred to go to medical school, but did not have the money. After graduating from college, Sullivan started her career as a high-school math and science teacher in Cocoa Beach, Florida. In 1966 she applied for employment at NASA, and was hired as an aerospace technologist and engineer.
Career with NASA
Sullivan was not recruited by NASA or even applying for a full-time job, but first applied for a summer job with NASA. Sullivan was hired at NASA in 1966 as the first woman engineer in Spacecraft Operations. In the 1960s, 17 percent of the staff at NASA were women, and most of those women were secretaries. She was the lead biomedical engineer for the Apollo 11 mission and was the only woman to help Neil Armstrong in the suit lab before launch. Sullivan was in the control room for the 1969 launch, keeping track of the biomedical systems; while she could not see the launch, Sullivan commented on the event "My seat rumbled and you knew something powerful was going on". As a biomedical engineer, Sullivan was responsible for maintaining the medical telemetry devices worn by the astronauts, and monitoring the telemetry from those instruments prior to and during the launch process. Sullivan would check the functioning of the medical telemetry instruments shortly after they were attached to the astronauts during the suit-up process. Later in the flight, responsibility for that telemetry was shifted to the Houston center. Sullivan was quoted in a news story of the time as saying:
The astronauts wear our sensors which are attached to their bodies during major spacecraft tests and during flight. These sensors monitor their heart beat, take electrocardiograms, and monitor respiration rates and depths. During spacecraft testing and live launches at KSC, a resident doctor and I, as biomed engineer, sit at the consoles and monitor the biomedical data coming from the spacecraft. The doctor evaluates the crewman's physical condition, and I, the performance of the biomedical system.
Sullivan notes that hers was the only female voice on the voice channels, so if she made any error, everyone would know who was responsible, while a male voice might not be recognized. Sullivan did not have an engineering degree, but NASA policy at that time allowed her to be so classified based on her college record. Graduating in the top 20% of one's class with a program heavy in math permitted a job title of "Engineer".
Later life
After Apollo 11 Sullivan moved to Ithaca, New York with her husband Marshall Sullivan and taught middle school while her husband attended Cornell. The couple later moved their family to Pennsylvania, where she worked as a teacher and a food technologist for Kraft. Today Sullivan is proud of her accomplishments with NASA and continues to encourage young women to go into the fields of science, math, and engineering. On July 19, 2019 Our Daily Planet declared Sullivan its "Hero of the Week" for her role at NASA and for her encouragement of young women to pursue careers in technology and science.
Personal life
While in training for NASA at St Louis, Missouri, Sullivan met Marshall Sullivan, and the two began dating. Some months later he was transferred to Florida and they were married. After the Apollo 11 mission, he entered an MBA program at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. She resumed teaching. Later they moved to the Lehigh Valley area in Pennsylvania where they raised a family.
Acting career
Sullivan was respected at NASA for her work with the Apollo 11 spacecraft, but after that mission they parted ways. After NASA, Sullivan's only son moved out and she started to experience empty nest syndrome. Sullivan explored modeling, meeting with the Philadelphia Casting Company, but decided not to pursue it as a career after shooting one commercial. She had a first lead role in a film about a soldier in Vietnam who finds a doctor's diary.
