Graduate Neuroscience Alumnus Richard Addante's NASA Dreams Come to Life
When Richard Addante, ’11 Ph.D. in Neuroscience, was seven, his mother took him to see the Space Shuttle Columbia launch from Cape Canaveral, FL. At that moment, his lifelong dream to become an astronaut was born. He became enamored with space, building model rockets and devouring books on the subject.
“It was so exciting for a young boy, and it ignited a spark in me that has continued to burn with a passion to explore our world and beyond,” said Addante.
Today, Addante is an assistant professor of psychology and the director of the EEG Laboratory at California State University, San Bernardino, where he studies the neurophysiology of human memory.
While a career in neuroscience moved Addante in a different direction than his boyhood fascination with space, it provided a serendipitous opportunity to join a research project on deep space exploration. But instead of looking beyond our planet, Addante focused on the uncharted interior of the mind.