Alexander was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Her mother was Gaynelle Justena Williams Alexander (1929-2017), a corporate librarian for Intel; her father was Harold Alfred Alexander (1917-2010), a social worker. Alexander's siblings are Suzanne and David. Alexander was raised by her mother in Santa Clara, California.[1]
Alexander wanted to be a journalist but her parents—who were paying for her education—wanted her to become an engineer.[2] After a summer job at the Ames Research Center, she became interested in planetary science. Although she had been hired to work in the engineering section, she would sneak off to the science section where she found that not only was she good at the work, but that it was easier and more enjoyable to her than she had expected.[4]
Alexander worked at the United States Geological Survey studying plate tectonics and at the Ames Research Center observing Jovian moons, before moving to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1986, where she worked for 30 years.[7][8] She worked as science coordinator for the plasma wave instrument aboard the Galileo spacecraft[9] before becoming the project manager of the mission in its final phase.[1] The mission discovered 21 new moons of Jupiter and the presence of an atmosphere on Ganymede.[10] The discovery of the atmosphere, more precisely a "surface bound exosphere", caused scientists to rethink their assumptions that Ganymede was an inactive moon.[11] She was the final project manager for the mission, and oversaw the spacecraft's dive into Jupiter's atmosphere at the mission's conclusion in 2003.[1]
Alexander worked as a researcher on diverse topics, including the evolution and interior physics of comets, Jupiter and its moons, magnetospheres, plate tectonics, space plasma, the discontinuities and expansion of solar wind, and the planet Venus. She also worked with the project team as a science coordinator on the Cassini mission to Saturn.[12] She wrote and co-authored 14 papers.[7]
She was a strong advocate for women and minorities in the STEM fields and a passionate science communicator.[1][10] In April 2015, she presented a TEDx talk at Columbia College Chicago, "The Compelling Nature of Locomotion and the Strange Case of Childhood Education", describing her approach for educating children about science.[13][14] She also mentored young people, particularly young girls of color, to encourage their passions for science.[1]
From 2000 until the time of her death, Alexander served as project scientist of NASA's role in Rosetta, the European Space Agency mission to study and land on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.[1][10] On the mission she was responsible for $35 million in instrumentation, collecting data such as temperature[2] from three instruments on the orbiter. She also oversaw tracking and navigation support from the NASA's Deep Space Network for the spacecraft.[15]
The year of her graduation from the University of Michigan she was named "U-M Woman of the Year in Human Relations", and she was among the first 20 African Americans students to graduate with a PhD in astronomy-physics.[16] In 2002 she earned the Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences Alumni Merit Award, and she also was a member of their National Advisory Board.[5][8]
In 2003, Alexander was awarded the Emerald Honor for Women of Color in Research & Engineering by Career Communications Group, Inc.—publisher of Black Engineer & Information Technology Magazine—at the National Women of Color Research Sciences and Technology Conference.[17]
The Claudia Alexander Scholarship was established for undergraduate students at her alma mater in 2007 by her uncle, Jiles Williams.[5] The scholarship supports need-based students majoring in climate and space sciences and engineering in the University of Michigan's college of engineering.[18]
In 2015 scientists from the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission honored their deceased colleague by naming a feature after her on the mission's target, comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. A gate-like feature on the comet has been named C. Alexander Gate.[20]
The University of Michigan Women in Science and Engineering office gives an annual award in her honor: the Claudia Joan Alexander Trailblazer Award for groundbreaking accomplishments and contributions to STEM.[21]
Not long after her death, the Miles From Tomorrowland episodes "A Growing Problem" and "The Tardigrade Escapade" were released in her memory.
^"Claudia Alexander". Multicultural Environmental Leadership Development Initiative. Archived from the original on 7 September 2015. Retrieved 21 July 2015.
