The American Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced that Turkish-born Deniz Burnham has been qualified to join the 2021 astronaut candidate class. According to the information on the official website of the institution, 36-year-old Deniz Burnham, who was born in Incirlik Military Base in Adana as a child of a US military family and studied in the fields of chemical and mechanical engineering in the USA, successfully completed comprehensive medical checks and various ability tests. She was chosen as one of six male and four female candidates from a pool of 12,000 applicants.

Making a statement at the event where the candidates were introduced at Ellington Field at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston on Monday, Burnham stated that she was inspired by her mother. “As a little girl, I got to watch my mom graduate college. I got to watch her commission as an officer in the United States Air Force. She taught me how to dream big, and as long as you stay the course you can achieve anything. That’s what inspired me to not give up on my childhood dream of becoming a NASA astronaut” Deniz Burnham said.