Penn State alum presents her NASA space garden research to current students

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Senior Life Sciences Project Scientist Gioia Massa conducts space plant biology research at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, with a focus on growing edible vegetables aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

Massa, who earned her doctorate in plant biology with a minor in geosciences from Penn State in 2003, was contacted by current plant biology doctoral candidate Alenka Hafner to present a talk about the extraordinary places her career has taken her since she finished her studies.

Hafner invited Massa to speak to Penn State students as part of the ​Huck Graduate Student Advisory Committee (HGSAC) Career Exposure Seminar series. “Dr. Massa introduced us to her unique career journey and her undeniably fascinating research focus. I think all the students who attended were very inspired, both by her cutting-edge research and impactful outreach work,” Hafner said.

Massa’s full, hour-long presentation is available on the Huck Institutes YouTube channel.

Massa’s path to a career in such a specialized field began in elementary school in Florida where she discovered her love of horticulture as a member of the Future Farmers of America student club. After her teacher visited KSC and brought details back about the research happening there, a lifelong passion was sparked in the then 12-year-old Massa. She knew, she said, that she wanted a career at KSC, finding ways to grow plants in space.

Before too long, Massa began to learn the importance of networking, she said. When one of her high school agriculture classes required her to build a hydroponic system to grow plants without soil, Massa encountered problems with the project that she didn’t know how to solve. So, she reached out to KSC for advice. To her delight, Massa got a response — from a scientist she works with directly today.

While earning her undergraduate degree in plant sciences, Massa found herself back at KSC again for a research project.

“I had an opportunity to work on a space shuttle student experiment with undergrad and grad students from several different engineering departments,” Massa said. “It was a wonderful way to engage in my passion for space and for creativity.”

It was during her time at Penn State that Massa realized she wasn’t happy spending most of her time in a lab, she said. She was more interested in the plant both as a whole organism and as food production.

“One of the things that I got out of graduate school is that I found out I am not really a cell biologist by nature,” Massa said. “Working in this field made me realize that I was actually more comfortable with whole plant physiology, and that's a great thing to learn about yourself. I also learned that I like to build things and create things and that I love to think about things from an ecosystem and evolutionary perspective.”

After earning her doctorate, Massa completed a post-doc in an interdisciplinary, NASA-funded center focused on bioregenerative life support: the practice of using biology to support a space crew with methods including growing plants for crop production, water recycling, atmosphere revitalization, and waste processing to recover resources. This experience opened the door for her to finally achieve her dream of returning to KSC as a researcher, first as a post-doc and later as a Life Sciences Project Scientist, said Massa.

Currently, Massa works at KSC with several collaborators from different disciplines, including astronauts living on the ISS, to conduct research on NASA’s Vegetable Production System. The plant growth system, known as "Veggie," is an elaborate garden on the ISS designed to help NASA scientists study plant growth in microgravity while adding fresh food to the astronauts’ diet.

Massa has played key leadership roles in several Veggie missions, including science team lead and principal investigator.

During the first three Veggie missions beginning in 2014, the ISS crew grew red romaine lettuce twice and "Orange Profusion" zinnia flowers. The first successful crop of lettuce underwent a food safety analysis, which allowed astronauts Kjell Lindgren and Scott Kelly, who was completing his highly publicized ISS year-long mission at the time, to enjoy the second crop of lettuce on space cheeseburgers on Aug. 10, 2015.

The crew experienced a lot of hardware problems growing the zinnia flowers. The plant nearly died after developing a fungus, but Kelly was able to nurse the plant back to health in time to receive permission to cut the flowers for a Valentine’s Day bouquet.

Following the success of the first three Veggie missions, Massa was invited to help plant the White House Kitchen Garden with then-First Lady Michelle Obama in April 2016. A champion of improving the health of the nation’s youth, Obama established the “Let’s Move!” campaign to reduce childhood obesity and encourage children to lead healthy lifestyles. As part of her initiatives, Obama started a White House vegetable garden on the South Lawn in 2009 to promote conversations about health and wellbeing. Several schoolchildren from across the country who participated in the USDA School Gardens program were invited to participate in White House garden event.

“This was a really amazing event. We helped provide seeds for plants for the garden to tie in with ongoing research on the ISS. Colleagues from NASA headquarters, a representative of NASA’s space biology program, an astronaut, and I, along with students and representatives from the USDA from the School Gardens program, were invited to help plant the garden,” said Massa. “We toured the White House public areas and planted crops that had been started by the National Parks Service in greenhouses alongside the First Lady, who gave a wonderful, enthusiastic speech about the value of eating healthy food and fresh vegetables. It was a wonderful experience and a great way to raise awareness about our work. I was extremely honored to attend.”

Massa serves as the PI on an upcoming mission in NASA’s Advanced Plant Habitat (APH), the plant habitat-07 mission which will study the impact of root zone moisture content on plant growth, nutrient composition, and the plant microbiome. The APH, like Veggie, is a growth chamber on the ISS for plant research. It uses LED lights and a porous clay substrate with controlled release fertilizer to deliver water, nutrients, and oxygen to the plant roots, explained Massa. Unlike Veggie, the APH is enclosed and automated with cameras and more than 180 sensors that are in constant interactive contact with a team on the ground at KSC which means it does not require much day-to-day care from the ISS crew.

Hafner invited Massa to Penn State because she admires Massa as both a scientist and an advocate.

“Dr. Massa’s early interest in space botany and how committed she was to achieve her goals was incredibly inspiring,” Hafner said. “She is not just working at the cutting-edge of plant biology, she coordinates incredibly broad interdisciplinary efforts vital to projects like Veggie. On top of that, she works to promote science through outreach initiatives, just like the one that got her interested in space plants as a child. As she pointed out in her presentation, it’s all about teamwork! To me, she represents what a modern plant scientist should be.”