Thornton, Kathryn, 1952-

Kathryn Ryan Cordell Thornton born August 17, 1952 in Montgomery, Alabama; B.S. degree in physics at Auburn University in 1974. In 1977 received an M.S. degree in physics and in 1979 a Ph.D. degree in physics at the University of Virginia; member of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the following honor societies: Sigma Pi Sigma, Phi Kappa Phi, and Sigma Xi; awarded a NATO Postdoctoral Fellowship to continue her research at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany. In 1980, she returned to Charlottesville, Virginia, where she was employed as a physicist at the United States Army Foreign Science and Technology Center; Selected by NASA in May 1984; Thornton flew on STS-33 in 1989, STS-49 in 1992, STS-61 in 1993, and STS-73 in 1995;