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Featured on July 1, 2024
Blast off with the first Pinoy Scientist for our July lineup! This week, we’re featuring Kristine “Tin” Jane Atienza, an analog astronaut and registered nutritionist-dietitian with the Space Generation Advisory Council!
Tin graduated from the University of the Philippines Diliman with a Bachelor’s degree in Community Nutrition. While her primary work is in nutrition, Tin also has a love for space and astronomy. Marrying both interests, she joined the Space Generation Advisory Council as an Executive Secretary where she worked for four years. To this day, she is an active member of the organization.
She is also a part of the International Astronomical Union for Diversity and Inclusion, and was one of the founding members of the Astronaut Nutrition in Isolated Confined Extreme Environments (ANICE) along with colleagues from Europe and the Middle East.
Tin is now taking her work with space nutrition a step further through her work as an analog astronaut with HI-SEAS or the Hawai‘i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation. She has participated in a number of studies about how nutrition affects astronaut physiology and psychology for analog missions such as Asclepios, CHILL-ICE, and LunAres.
For her pioneering work, Tin has been recognised as a Gen T Leader of Tomorrow by Tatler and featured on Vogue Philippines.
Some fun facts about Tin:
- She has grapheme-color synthesia, a condition where she perceives words, letters, and numbers with color. For example, her name ‘Kristine’ is yellow, and number ‘4’ is mossy green. She only learned that it was a condition when she was in college. She thought it was normal for everyone.
- She’s a LOONA stan and LOONAverse/ LOONA lore nerd. She would include visiting their filming sites in her itinerary whenever she’d be in a country where they’d also been to.
- She kept her W.I.T.C.H (Willma, Irma, Taranee, Cornelia, Hay Lin) collection. She used to buy each copy of the magazine every month when she was in grade school, up to high school.
