In memory of Nate Szewczyk

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Dear NASA and OSDR/GeneLab AWG members,

I’m writing to share some unfortunate news. On July 26, Nate Szewczyk, my former supervisor and mentor, passed away. His family has not disclosed any information about his passing, but I know Nate was quite sick a couple of months ago. This has come as a great shock to many of us who worked with him.

The birthplace of meeting Nate was GeneLab AWG! Nate played a pivotal role in my academic and professional journey. He was the person who helped me come to the United States and launch my career. He was also among the first collaborators I published with, and it was through him that I had the opportunity to become involved with GeneLab, participate in the NASA SHINE program, and visit BNL - dreams and goals that became a reality, and I remain deeply grateful for!

His guidance, support, and scientific contributions had a lasting impact, not only on my life but on the field at large. One of the most remarkable things Nate did was launch worms on the ISS! No matter how cool data analysis is, we tend to forget that it is the people behind the scenes who work hard and bring all those samples on Earth.

I wanted to share this loss with you all, as I know many of you may have worked with or known him. This is the link for his obituary. May we all remember him and his service to NASA and space biology research!

Alexia

@AIMLawg @ALSDAawg @AnimalAWG @PlantAWG @HUMANawg @MicrobesAWG @MultiOmicsAWG @FemaleReproAWG @HUMANawg @HardwareAWG @BrainAWG @RLWG

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Thank you so much for sharing this news Alexia :green_heart: I have thought of Nate daily since I heard the news :sad_but_relieved_face:

For others, in that obituary link above has another link to a ‘guestbook’ for people who knew Nate to share a message which will be seen by his family:

Below is the message I shared with his wife and daughter.

I urge AWG members to consider sharing your thoughts, stories, and remembrances of him there.

We have been thinking of doing something bigger, perhaps collect video recordings of AWG members who knew and worked-collaborated with Nate, to then share with his family?

The message I shared:

“I’m so sorry for your loss. I wanted you to know how much Nate meant to me and so many more. Ever since I heard the news, I have thought of him daily.

Nate was a one-in-million type of person. I knew him through space science, his NASA research grants, and his collaborations with our global Analysis Working Group community around NASA Genelab and the NASA Open Science Data Repository. He had a gigantic impact on the entire global field and on the direction the NASA projects took which influence tens of thousands of researchers, young people, citizen scientists – across dozens of countries.

Nate had a brilliance which inspired me deeply ever since the first time we met. He inspired me not only to be a better scientist, but inspired me to be a better person. His knowledge, kindness, and cool-calm demeanor taught me how to communicate clearly and converse with others of differing viewpoints and backgrounds. All who worked with him were impacted by these qualities. Dozens upon dozens of his collaborators around the world miss him dearly. I sincerely looked forward each year to our in-person conference discussions.

His love for spaceflight and science is something we all aspire to - his belief that a bright future is possible, full of goodness, wonder, exploration, and expansion of human horizons across the solar system.

You’re both in our thoughts.
-Ryan T. Scott”

Btw @AnimalAWG I will try to stop by your meeting today where Nate will be discussed (Nate was a long-time Co-Chair/Leader of the AWG at large, and the Animal AWG especially)

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Thank you Alexia for sharing the news with me and the AWG community. It has been a very great shock and I’m very saddened by Nate’s passing. I first met Nate when he was a post-doc at Ames more than 20 years ago. I didn’t follow his career except to see worm flight papers over the years. Nate was one of the first to join the AWG community almost 10 years ago and immediately volunteered to lead the Animal AWG. His leadership in that role has been fantastic. He has always promoted junior scientists as primary authors and provide guidance and leadership for them and broadcasted their successes.

For me personally, Nate provided support for me when I applied for a Fulbright fellowship in the UK. Nate was my sponsor at the U. Nottingham. I visited him in Nottingham, and met his lab and his daughter. My Fulbright application earned a wait-list position, and then covid happened and the Fulbrights for that year were cancelled. Nate and I also collaborated on a NASA grant application which also was not successful, but it was a great process and I learned a lot about worms in helping write the proposal.

Finally Nate has been a very active participant and founder in ISSOP. His voice will be missed in all of these forums and I really hope that another great worm biologist will step up to fill his big shoes in space.

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