Alumni Spotlight: Jared Peick ’13

The Alumni Spotlight Series is a new feature to highlight Saint Michael’s alumni far and wide. Answers have been lightly edited for style and clarity.

Jared Peick ’13, recently shared his story about how Saint Michael’s College shaped his career with NASA. Peick majored in Biology

Jared Peick

and Chemistry and was a high honors student, inducted in four different honor societies. Peick emphasizes how the liberal arts courses at Saint Michael’s have given him communication skills which has helped him throughout his entire career.

What specifically do you work on with NASA?

I work at Johnson Space Center, and as a contractor, I work on the Artemis program, which is sending their crew back to the surface

of the moon. My specific role is on the medical operations team. We want to make sure the crew is happy and healthy when they’re traveling out to the moon, while they’re on the moon, and that they get home safely. We want to make sure all the requirements are accounted for, such as oxygen, pressure, and a proper bathroom. We’ll also be supporting missions and mission control as flight controllers. We’re basically responsible for all the medical hardware that you fly during these missions, the exercise equipment that we fly. I’m currently training up towards mission control.

Did you always want to work for NASA?

I’ve wanted to do something like this for as long as I can remember. I started out in communications, the MJD program. I found that biology was what I should be studying more to get into science. There were a lot of opportunities to get into working with space.

Did you take any courses having to do with space at Saint Michaels?

Jared Peick

I took astronomy freshman year. There weren’t a whole lot of space-oriented classes besides Physics. The foundation of Biology and Chemistry really opened up opportunities, scientific method. That way of thinking applies a lot to some of the challenges I work in these days.

How did Saint Michael’s prepare you for your current career? Any specific skills you gained?

Yes, outside of the foundation of Biology and Chemistry, the skill of communication and being able to work with a lot of different disciplines and being able to talk to an engineer versus someone else. Interdisciplinary communication is key. I thought Saint Michael’s did a good job being the liberal arts program that it is. It provides that sort of environment where you’re in a bunch of different types of classes. You learn a lot about how to talk to people and what they care about.

Is there anything else you’d like to tell me about what you are currently working on?

As part of the medical operations team, I’m supporting the design and development of lunar space suits and rovers for the Artemis Program.