Fall 2026 49 P R O F I L E continues During the pandemic, Schmidt decided that if she could find a strong online-only program that allowed her to keep working, it would be the ideal time to further her education. The Oregon State online interdisciplinary graduate program in environmental sciences fit the bill perfectly. Without the Ecampus option for this degree, “I wouldn’t have been able to do it,” Schmidt says. Her graduate project examined ways to use green infrastructure to address catastrophic flooding in Houston. “My master’s program took coordination, organization and dedication that I hadn’t experienced before,” she says. “A few months after completing the master’s project, I was tasked with writing mission documents for imagery, which were only slightly shorter than the master’s project paper. Without the master’s, that work documentation would have been so scary. It certainly helped me tackle other massive projects with more confidence than if it was a pre-master’s project.” As the Artemis project ramped up at NASA, Schmidt’s group pivoted to providing operational support for the lunar science team, similar to what they had been doing for the ISS. They knew, in theory, what images they wanted the astronaut team to capture, but issues like slight timing changes and lunar illumination → Clockwise from top left: One of Schmidt’s favorite mission photos; astronaut Reid Wiseman using the software developed by Schmidt’s team to report lunar observations; this image of NASA Mission Control watching the launch went viral after social media viewers noted the number of women in the room; “I got full body chills when I saw the photos,” Schmidt says about the first images returned from the lunar flyby, like this one of Earthset.
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