My Job? Growing food in space!

Uploaded on October 16, 2024

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My Job? Growing food in space!

Find out about the career path of Chris Patterson, engineering project manager on the Canadian Space Agency's food production team. (Credit: Canadian Space Agency)

Chris Patterson: So, I'm one of the engineering project managers on the food production team at the Canadian Space Agency.

My job really is to help us develop the technologies that we'll use to feed astronauts on the lunar surface and then maybe beyond if we get to that point.”

So, I studied bioresource engineering at McGill University, and that's where I did my undergrad. I'm actually currently a graduate student at the University of Guelph’s Controlled Environment Systems Research Facility, and I'm doing my master’s in controlled environment agriculture there.”

I have been able to work in labs in Canadian universities studying how we might cultivate plants in space, studying how different LED wavelengths target plants and are able to optimize their growth, and seeing how we might be able to use moon dust to help plants grow as well.

So, I've had a very long and busy career path to get here, but I am overjoyed that it's been able to bring me where I am today, and that everything can help inform the work that we do here.

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