Christina Birch, 35, of San Pedro beat out some 12,000 other applicants to be part of the agency's next class of 10 astronauts.
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Birch earned a doctorate in biological engineering from MIT and taught at UC Riverside and Caltech.
She is also an accomplished cyclist, who earned two medals at the Pan-American Games.
She begins her two years of astronaut training next month.
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Including the 10 new members of the 2021 class, NASA has selected only 360 astronauts since the start of the space program with the original Mercury Seven in 1959.