Join the Hearts in the Ice team from their remote cabin at Bamsebu to get an update as they overwinter in Svalbard conducting important citizen science. Then learn all about what it take to become an astronaut. What are the most enjoyable and stressful aspects for astronauts during space missions? Gro Mjeldheim Sandal will answer those questions and more as she shares some of her research among teams in extreme environments, specifically focusing on how astronauts cope with living and working in space as well as what space agencies can learn from studies of expeditions teams in polar areas, such as Hilde and Sunniva at Bamsebu.

Gro is professor in psychology at the University of Bergen in Norway. Since the early 1990s she has been the principal investigator of large scale research projects funded by the European Space Agency focusing on psychological reactions during spaceflights and in other extreme environments. She has conducted series of studies with astronauts at the International Spaces Station (ISS), space simulation studies in hyperbaric chambers and polar expeditions to understand how people cope during exposure to extreme environments.

January 14, 2021

12:00 pm to 12:45 pm EST