{"id":12703,"date":"2019-05-06T08:01:36","date_gmt":"2019-05-06T07:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=12703"},"modified":"2019-05-06T08:01:36","modified_gmt":"2019-05-06T07:01:36","slug":"to-the-moon-and-back-ou-student-hannah-on-breaking-boundaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/student-stories\/to-the-moon-and-back-ou-student-hannah-on-breaking-boundaries\/","title":{"rendered":"To the moon and back \u2013 OU student Hannah on breaking boundaries"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hannah Sargeant spends her days exploring the universe. As a planetary scientist and PhD researcher<\/a> at The Open University, Hannah, 26, is fulfilling her childhood dream by researching all corners of the solar system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During her career, Hannah has been\ninvolved with international research projects to support a series\nof missions to the Moon, ultimately supporting future crewed missions\nto the Moon and even to Mars. Her current OU research focuses on the first\nmission to the South Pole of the Moon in 2023, specifically looking at\ntechniques to extract water from Moon rocks. This revolutionary mission has\nnever been done before and has the potential to be ground-breaking for\nfurthering space exploration.
\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inspiring\nthe next generation <\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In a traditionally male-dominated field, Hannah is breaking boundaries in the field of Moon exploration. She is passionate about encouraging more young people into STEM subjects<\/a> (science, technology, engineering and maths) and enjoys visiting schools to run space balloon projects and deliver career talks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She says the key lies in working with\nyoung people to break the stereotype of what a scientist looks like. Hannah\nsaid:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat The Open University has offered me is very unique \u2013 I\u2019m able to do practical and potentially ground-breaking research in an institute that not only accepts, but encourages people who don\u2019t fit an expected norm. My confidence in myself and my work has grown during my time at The Open University. I\u2019m now a STEM ambassador and want to encourage more young people to join the space industry.\u201d
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Exploring\nnew worlds<\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hannah\u2019s lab is based in The Open\nUniversity\u2019s Milton Keynes campus, where she and her colleagues build and test\ninstruments that will soon travel beyond Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m incredibly proud to contribute to the research being done here at the OU – its work in planetary science is world class. People often think the OU is only a virtual entity, they don\u2019t always realise that we perform cutting edge research at a real campus in Milton Keynes.\u201d  <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"Hannah
Hannah Sargeant<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Celebrating 50 years of changing\nlives <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hannah features as part of a new photography collection taken by renowned British photographer Chris Floyd<\/a>, to mark the OU\u2019s 50th Anniversary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Travelling around the UK to capture the remarkable stories of the OU today, Floyd\u2019s 10 portraits have been released alongside a never seen before collection of images from the OU\u2019s archive. See the rest of the inspirational students and alumni featured in our collection at 50.open.ac.uk\/photography<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guest Author: Carly Sumner <\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\"Photograph<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Carly Sumner is a Digital Content Officer in the Development\nOffice at The Open University. She loves telling stories and has spent the past\n10 years writing about everything from nappy bags to balance transfers. She\nholds a BA (Hons) in Journalism and Media Studies from Coventry University.\nWhen she\u2019s not writing, Carly enjoys reading, sharing good food with great\npeople, and all things colourful. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hannah Sargeant spends her days exploring the universe. As a planetary scientist and PhD researcher at The Open University, Hannah, 26, is fulfilling her childhood dream by researching all corners of the solar system. During her career, Hannah has been involved with international research projects to support a series of missions to the Moon, ultimately supporting future […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12705,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,18],"tags":[35,375,1525,1704,1904,2081,2115,2210],"class_list":["post-12703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-environment","category-student-stories","tag-ou50-moon","tag-carly-sumner","tag-news-home","tag-phd","tag-research","tag-space","tag-stem","tag-ou50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}