Kathryn Dwyer Sullivan was born in Paterson, New Jersey, USA.
Kathryn Dwyer Sullivan was born on October 3, 1951, in Paterson, New Jersey. She grew up with a fascination for geography, maps, and the natural world, interests nurtured by her family and formal education that eventually led her toward the earth sciences.
Sullivan went on to earn a bachelor's degree in Earth Sciences from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and later a Ph.D. in Geology from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, where she also participated in oceanographic research expeditions. This combination of interests in exploration, science, and adventure would define her extraordinary career.
Her early academic path in oceanography and marine geology gave her both the technical grounding and the appetite for exploration that eventually brought her to NASA's astronaut corps in 1978, as part of the first class to include women. From this modest beginning in New Jersey, Sullivan would go on to become a trailblazing astronaut, scientist, and government official, ultimately achieving the distinction of being the first person in history to have traveled to both outer space and the deepest point of Earth's oceans.