For nine years, Chase Chandler tended to wounded warriors as a Navy Special Warfare Combat Crewman (SWCC) medic, serving three tours of duty overseas, from the South Pacific to the Middle East. These days, his patients are ailing science experiments — in space.

After seeing the world on SWCC teams, Chandler returned to his native Birmingham to work on the next step in his career path: getting off the planet. He is now finishing an undergraduate degree in the UAB College of Arts and Sciences Department of Physics, all the while holding down a full-time job in the Payload Operations Integration Center at NASA’s Huntsville complex, where he oversees research projects running on the International Space Station.

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